


sunbeams

by featherx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (as in: a lot of minor characters die), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimson Flower Route, M/M, Minor Caspar von Bergliez/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert, Minor Character Death, Minor Claude von Riegan/Petra Macneary, Minor Edelgard von Hresvelg/Lysithea von Ordelia, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 218,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22184566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/featherx
Summary: Byleth hadn’t been planning to become a student in the monastery. Father likely hadn’t been planning to become a teacher, either.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 165
Kudos: 465
Collections: byhardt





	1. great tree moon — “you seem like a strange one.”

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a self-indulgent google doc where i could do whatever i wanted and make byleth a student because i despise student/teacher relationships but adore linleth’s dynamic. anyway 5 months later it’s still a self-indulgent google doc, just now over 200k words
> 
> some notes!
> 
>   * i don't remember ever mentioning this in-fic, but since byleth is a student, he's meant to be 18-19 years old. (post-TS, he'd physically be 24, though still mentally 19 considering the circumstances.)
>   * when i say slow burn i MEAN slow burn. like we are going to be here for a while.
>   * this is black eagles/crimson flower propaganda so if you don’t like that you probably should not be here. i also dislike rhea and though i try not to make my biases affect my writing this may still show through in the fic when she eventually arrives so if you also don’t like that you also probably should not be here
>   * some lines are taken directly from the game script (thanks fire emblem wiki), but i tried to modify some so not all of em are exactly the same
>   * lastly: hope you enjoy! c:
> 


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[i enlist the gods and all the frauds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypKEYl2amtw) _   
>  _[we are hand and glove, daisy chains of love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypKEYl2amtw) _
> 
> chapter length fluctuates from chapters 1 to 8! this first one is the shortest at 2.3k :)

Byleth hadn’t been planning to become a student in the monastery. Father likely hadn’t been planning to become a teacher, either.

It was hard to reject the Archbishop’s offer, though, especially when she had promised a fair amount of monthly payment in gold, and teaching some teenagers how to fight didn’t sound very _hard,_ especially if Byleth were to be among them and help out. So Father said yes. He hadn’t sounded very happy about it—“Trust Alois to run his mouth about how my _mercenary experience_ would do some noble brats good”—but it was the highest-paying job they had been able to get for months now, and they’d both be lying if they said they weren’t just a bit curious to see how it would go for both of them.

“Now the question is which House you’ll be joining,” Father says during dinner in the dining hall. The Archbishop had let them have the night to think their choice over. “They’re all the same to me, so I don’t care which bunch I’ll have to handle. But you?”

Byleth tilts his head to the side a little. He hadn’t gotten to know any of the three House leaders all that well in the short time they had spent together walking back to the monastery, and he doesn’t remember—doesn’t know, really—where in Fódlan he had been born, so he can’t even base his decision off that. “I don’t know.”

“Thought you’d say that.” Father takes a bite out of his meal, apparently taking the time to savor it. Byleth had finished his several minutes ago, a decision he’s beginning to regret. “Didn’t you go around and talk to some of ‘em today? Anyone you like enough to be classmates with?”

“Mmh…” They all have varying personalities. It isn’t that none of them _stood out—_ it was more accurate to say they all did, equally. “They’re all the same.”

Father raises an eyebrow, and Byleth supposes he could have worded that better. “I mean, I don’t mind any of them. They’re all… nice.”

Then Father snaps his fingers. “That girl! The one with the white hair, the one you saved during the fight. What’s her name, von Hresvelg?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Why don’t you join up with her, then? You seem to like her well enough.”

That’s an odd assumption, but it isn’t like Byleth has thrown himself in front of a giant axe to save a stranger’s life very often, so Father probably has a point. _The Black Eagles…_ He’d met so many students that Byleth can only firmly remember Edelgard and her retainer, that Hubert von Vestra, as members of that House. If he tries hard enough, he can probably recall more of them, but he doesn’t really care that much. “Sure.”

Father blinks. “What, just like that?”

“Sure,” Byleth repeats. It doesn’t make a difference to him. Everything Father will be teaching will be things he already knows, and he doubts they’ll be staying in the monastery long enough for his choice of House to really matter. Eventually they’d have to pack up and leave for real mercenary work again, probably after the Archbishop finds a more qualified teacher, and Byleth doesn’t like the idea of getting attached enough to stay behind.

Father looks at him for a while longer, then shrugs. “Alright. I’ll tell Lady Rhea tomorrow, then.”

He only lasts another minute before he sighs and pushes the rest of his plate to an eager Byleth.

“This is Byleth Eisner,” Edelgard announces. She had called for a meeting among the Black Eagles not an hour after Father told the Archbishop about their choice of House, and Byleth had thought it was something serious. Apparently, it’s just his introduction. “He’s Jeralt Eisner’s son, and he’ll be joining us as our classmate.”

“No way! The Ashen Demon?” someone crows—Byleth turns to face them, and is met with a shock of bright blue hair. What was his name—Casper? “I’m Caspar! Von Bergliez,” Caspar adds, his title something of an afterthought. “We should spar together sometime!”

“Oh. Um, sure.”

“Aren’t you nice on the eyes?” someone else coos. This one Byleth remembers—Dorothy, right. She smiles, both kindly and flirtatious. “It’s Dorothea. Nice to meet you.”

Ah. Not Dorothy. “Nice to meet—”

“Dorothea, it would not do to pounce upon our new classmate so soon after he’s joined us,” another student chastises. Dorothea pouts; Byleth struggles to remember this person’s name. Orange hair… it starts with an F, surely? “I am Ferdinand von Aegir,” he says, showing off a perfect smile. “Are you of noble lineage, by any chance? How did you come to be a student here?”

Ferdinand—he’s technically _right,_ he supposes, the name starts with an F, after all. “I didn’t—”

“Let’s not crowd him,” Edelgard sighs. Byleth shoots her a thankful look, which she returns with a smile—really, Byleth’s just impressed she had been able to realize it was a thankful look at all, with how often Father’s mercenaries tell him how inscrutable his expressions are. “There’ll be plenty of time to introduce ourselves later. For now, it’s getting late, and the professor already assigned us some reading.”

 _Professor?_ Byleth thinks, and realizes, _Oh, Father._ The thought of twenty-something kids calling Father _Professor_ is more amusing than he’d expected.

The rest of the Black Eagles disperse, chattering among themselves, and Byleth takes the time to evaluate them as quickly as he can, the same way he evaluates enemies in the middle of a fight—Hubert had stayed silent at Edelgard’s side, the girl with long, braided hair is speaking lowly to Dorothea, and another girl with ruffled violet hair is out the door before Byleth can get a better look at her.

They’re all a little—Byleth can’t really think of a word that describes all of them accurately, but at least they don’t seem like they bear ill will against him. Except perhaps Hubert, who Byleth makes a mental note to avoid offending. They don’t look hard to get along with, for now—

“Byleth Eisner,” someone says. “Hello there.”

Byleth’s first thought is to position his sword right against his assailant’s throat. Byleth’s second thought, coming from a yelping Sothis, is “He’s just a student, he’s not going to kill you!”

Byleth reluctantly lowers his arm back down to his side—his hand had been inches away from the hilt of his sword. When he turns around, it’s the quiet boy who hadn’t said anything, eyebrows raised and gaze clearly curious. “Your reflexes are admirable.”

“Thank you?”

“I suppose I should avoid threatening you next time, if I would like to avoid being stabbed as well.”

Byleth shrugs. “You didn’t threaten me.”

“Oh?” The boy smiles. For the life of him, Byleth can’t remember his name. “Is that a challenge? You seem like a strange one.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Take it as you like it. It doesn’t matter to me.” Then, with a slow blink of his dark blue eyes, the boy turns to leave. “I’m a little tired now. But I’d like it if we got to know each other better soon, Byleth.”

He leaves after another meaningful look behind him—and Byleth, staring blankly at the door the boy had left through, realizes he’d forgotten to ask for his name.

“You’re not busy right now, are you? Could you go look for some recipe ideas for me, then?”

Byleth can’t say he’s used to monastery life yet.

Everyone’s… easygoing. Perhaps it’s unfair to say so, when these students haven’t exactly been pushed into life-and-death situations so often that they’ve become the norm, but Byleth can’t get used to it. They treat him like one of them, even those from the other Houses, and none of them seem to care about his mysterious mercenary background. Mostly, they care about things like his preferred meals or his favorite tea.

He’s not used to it. But he can’t say he doesn’t like it, either.

For today, the head chef had asked for his help on procuring recipe ideas from cookbooks in the library. “Or maybe a student can spark some inspiration,” the chef had mused—“anyway, let me know if you find something, would you?”

It’s a long walk to the library, but Byleth likes the calmness that comes with just walking, no looking around for threats or surveying his surroundings. He climbs the stairs, crosses the hallways (avoids looking into the audience chamber, where the Archbishop is—if Father doesn’t trust her, then neither does he), and slips into the library at last. The quiet here is comforting, the pleasant hum of silence interspersed with the flutter of book pages or the flicker of a candle.

Byleth takes a moment to close his eyes and breathe in the smell of old books. He can’t say he’s used to monastery life yet, but he could certainly get used to the library.

The chef hadn’t rushed him, so Byleth takes his time scouring through the shelves, running a hand across the spines of the impeccably-arranged volumes. The history of Fódlan, the four Saints, Hero’s Relics… he barely knows anything about any of these. It’s probably a good idea to start reading up on them soon, then, if he doesn’t want to be left behind in conversations where these are common sense. He pulls the most comprehensive-looking books off the shelves and tucks them against his chest. The founding of the Adrestian Empire, the geography of Fódlan, the existence of Crests—

“Ah,” someone says—“if it isn’t Byleth.”

Byleth pulls his hand back so fast, his arm almost snaps—that brief brush of skin, fingertips on fingertips, is already far more than he’s used to. The boy in his class, all dark green hair and dark blue eyes, gives him a curious look—this close, Byleth realizes the boy’s just slightly taller than him, not enough that he has to look up, but enough to, well… notice.

“Well?” The boy looks back at the book they had both reached for. He pulls it out of place and hands it to Byleth. “Weren’t you about to get this?”

“You can have it,” Byleth says, too fast. There’s something about the boy’s eyes that unnerves him terribly—it feels like they’re looking into him, analyzing him, discovering things about Byleth he shouldn’t. Things about Byleth he himself doesn’t even know about.

“Hm? Are you sure?” But the boy is already retracting his arm, a faint smile on his face. “I think you might need it more than me. You don’t know much about these subjects, do you?”

Byleth’s about to ask how he knows before remembering that the stack of books he’s steadily collected isn’t exactly subtle. He clears his throat and looks back at the shelves, more to avoid eye contact than anything. “My father didn’t tell me much about these.”

The boy raises an eyebrow. “Professor, right?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Will you call him _Professor,_ too? Seems a little odd.”

Byleth shrugs, but he wonders what face Father might make if he ever called him _Professor._ He’d probably look appalled beyond belief. “I don’t know.”

“Oh,” the boy says, looking amused, “so you can smile.”

The smile he hadn’t even been aware of falls from Byleth’s face immediately. “By the way,” he says, ignoring the confusion on the boy’s face, “could you point me to some recipe books? The chef needs them.”

“Hmm.” The boy frowns, but he doesn’t press the issue; instead, he waves a hand at the shelves at the back, where Byleth is well aware the cookbooks are, along with magazines on home design and architecture. “Are they in need of recipe ideas? You could always ask them to make something sweet for dinner.”

Byleth inclines his head in a half-nod, offering nothing else as he slips past the boy and fixes his gaze on the shelves—he hears a huff from behind him, then footsteps shuffling away.

What bothers him most, Byleth thinks as he starts retrieving some books, is that he hadn’t even registered the other boy coming closer until they’d been right beside each other. That kind of inattention is the sort of thing that would get him… no, get the both of them killed on the battlefield. Father would have scolded him for it, really.

And worst of all, Byleth _still_ doesn’t know the boy’s name.

“Here you go.”

He’d gathered the nicest and most up-to-date recipe books he could find. Byleth doesn’t know much about cooking outside of common fish and meat, as those had been his meals day in and day out, so he can’t say he understands a thing in the books he found. But the head chef lights up when she sees them, thanks him profusely, and says, “I’ll look forward to seeing you on cooking duty one of these days.”

 _Ah,_ he thinks, _this is bad, huh._

Dinner that night is far too sweet for Byleth’s tastes, really, and Father makes a face at the overwhelming flavor as well. But he sneaks a glance at the Black Eagles table, and the boy from earlier, seated between Dorothea and Caspar, seems to like it well enough.

“You know you can hang out with your classmates, right?” Father asks, noticing his gaze. “If you keep eating with the Knights, you’re gonna start looking like one of them.”

“Yes, and what a tragedy that would be,” one of the Knights, Shamir, mumbles. Her partner Catherine laughs and smacks her back with far more force than necessary.

Byleth pushes his food around his plate in contemplation for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I don’t feel like one of them, really.”

Father sighs, and when Byleth looks up, he can see Father’s expression softening at the edges. “Yeah? I get that.”

Byleth supposes attachment is something they both fear after all.

“By the way, the uniform suits you.”

“Really?” Byleth tugs at the jabot, although he’s already tugged at it several times over the past few hours that it’s nearly fully undone by this point. “It’s stuffy.”

Father laughs, and for a moment he looks younger than Byleth knows he is. “I’m kidding. The hat’s ridiculous, for one.”


	2. harpstring moon — “i could teach you. if you like.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s stumbling backwards—
> 
> “I—I killed them, what have I done—the blood—”
> 
> —and Byleth isn’t thinking when he runs to parry a bandit’s sword, right before it would have cleaved the green-haired boy’s skull in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[they will come with the strength and the fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBL3b_wZEDE) _   
>  _[and a numb beat of drums](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBL3b_wZEDE) _   
>  _[and the song of the sirens in our ears](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBL3b_wZEDE) _

He’s stumbling backwards—

“I—I killed them, what have I done—the blood—”

—and Byleth isn’t thinking when he runs to parry a bandit’s sword, right before it would have cleaved the green-haired boy’s skull in two.

It’s his first time fighting with the rest of the Black Eagles. Father had decided against having him in the mock battle a while back, because the other students needed the experience more, and Byleth had agreed. Frankly, he hadn’t cared one way or the other, and it was true he was leagues above in experience compared to the other students, enough that he felt a little bad about it.

But this is a real battle, against real bandits, and the boy’s hands are shaking when Byleth turns around to look at him. “You alright?”

He looks up at him, blue eyes the widest Byleth’s seen them, before managing a hesitant nod. “I’ll be… I’ll be fine.”

“Keep close. Don’t get separated.” And, after a moment’s thought, Byleth adds, “You can stay behind me, if you like.”

“What…?”

“I’ll fight.” He nods at the boy’s hands, coated in blood. Byleth had seen his magic spell go awry, how the blades of wind that were only meant to push the bandit backwards had sliced deep into his chest instead, sending blood spurting out in gushes. Byleth’s seen worse—much worse—but he doubts the boy can say the same. “You heal.”

_That way, you won’t have to kill._

The boy swallows and seems to weigh his options for a moment before nodding, taking several wobbling steps towards Byleth until he’s close enough to bring his hands above a minor wound on Byleth’s arm. The warm glow of a heal spell washes over Byleth for a split second before it’s gone as fast as it had come—the boy had let his trembling hands drop back down to his sides.

Without any other bandits in the immediate vicinity, Byleth takes a moment to look around them—Father had trusted him, along with a few other classmates, to take the side path through the bridge and cut off any bandits that may be trying to escape from there. But the bandits had sprung on them without warning, and the scuffle had gotten them all separated throughout the canyon. Byleth has, at least, crossed the west bridge and where he should be, but he can’t say the same for this boy, whom Father had asked to stay behind the rest of them for long-range support.

“Thank you,” Byleth remembers to say, flexing his arm. The injury would have healed by itself, over time, but he’s not complaining. The boy says nothing, just stares down at his hands, and Byleth realizes he must not want to get blood stains on his clothes—that would just serve as a reminder of what he’d done today, and blood stains are hard to wash out, after all. “You can wipe your hands on my coat,” he offers.

The boy’s gaze snaps to him. “I’m sorry?”

“You can wipe the blood off on my coat.” Byleth shrugs. “It’s seen worse days.”

“Ah,” he murmurs, voice inches away from breaking, “it’s fine. Thank you.”

“If you’re sure.”

It’s still a little awkward, considering their last interaction had been Byleth brushing him off for eliciting a smile out of him, but he supposes the battlefield is no place to bring their personal matters into, and it’s been a few days since they’d met in the library. He advances across the canyon, trusting the boy to stay close behind him (the shuffle of footsteps says he does), and peers around a rock wall—he can see the leader, Kostas, snarling orders at a small group of bandits.

Byleth waits for the other bandits to leave before casting a glance around them. No sign of Father or any of the other students. He can only hope they’re caught up trying to cross the north bridge, and that they haven’t fallen off the steep cliffs entirely. “Hey. You.”

The boy gives him an unimpressed look. “It’s Linhardt.”

 _Oh, thank goodness._ “Linhardt,” Byleth amends, “sorry. Can you heal from far away?”

“You mean the Physic spell?” Linhardt—it’s a little odd, finally being able to refer to him with a name—asks. He looks thoughtful for a moment, the haunted expression on his face disappearing for a few seconds, then nods. “Not very often. But I can.”

“Good,” Byleth says. “Cover me, then.” And he rushes out, quick as a blink, before Kostas can turn around and see him.

“What—were—you—thinking!”

Byleth sighs into his (incredibly late) dinner. They’d gotten back to the monastery at an odd hour of the morning, and while he had wanted to sleep, his hunger had eventually won out. He wonders if he should have just gone to his room. “Father—”

Father shakes his head. “Rushing ahead. By yourself. Without telling anyone at all. I know you’re a seasoned merc by now, kid, but we _always_ get help during fights, alright? Rule number one in our crew is to never engage battle alone.”

“There, that’s the thing,” Byleth says, resisting the incredible urge to pout, “I wasn’t _alone._ ”

“Yeah? You were with the von Hevring kid. That’s alone enough for me.”

Something about that statement, inexplicably enough, makes something in Byleth want to raise his figurative hackles. He’s never really _felt_ many things before, outside of exhaustion and hunger, but now irritation is welling up in him at the implication of those words. “What do you mean?”

Father sighs. “I don’t mean he’s weak or useless or anything like that, kid. I just mean he doesn’t like fighting. That’s all there is to it.”

“He _helped._ ” Linhardt’s Physic spells had been more than useful while Byleth danced circles around Kostas—the bandit, wielding an axe heavier than either of them, was far slower but also hit much harder, and Byleth isn’t used to fighting enemies who refused to move from where they stood. It had made maneuvering around him much harder than it should have been, which Kostas may have planned from the start, and it didn’t help that he had stood on one of those healing tiles.

With time, Byleth had been able to wear Kostas down enough to land a decisive strike. But it would have taken far longer and would have hurt much more if Linhardt hadn’t been hiding behind a rock formation, casting Physic whenever Byleth had felt himself begin to slow down, and his healing magic worked much faster than Kostas’ healing tile, fractured and worn down with use as it was. Afterwards, they’d made their way back to the north bridge and met back up with the rest of the Black Eagles, where Caspar had accosted Linhardt and Byleth mentally prepared himself for the earful he knew Father was going to give him.

He just hadn’t expected that earful would go on the _whole_ way back to the monastery and into the dining hall.

Father gives him a long look, then sighs. “Alright, fine. It’s not like you’d lie about that sort of thing. And… it’s not like either of you had a choice when you got separated from us. Just… a kid who doesn’t want to fight can’t ever be relied on. Not in a bad way. Just in a realistic way.”

Byleth chews on some fish, more to avoid having to reply than anything. Linhardt hasn’t looked at him since they took Kostas down, much less spoken to him, and he had opted to retire to his dorm rather than have dinner, so Byleth hasn’t gotten the chance to talk to him. About _what,_ though, he doesn’t even know—a thank-you is definitely in order, for providing valuable support in the canyon, but he suspects that’s not much of a conversation starter.

He wonders what Linhardt would say, in turn. He doesn’t _seem_ talkative—certainly cordial enough, based off their few previous encounters, but not exactly _conversational._ Maybe he would say a bland you’re-welcome back. Maybe he’d smile and say thank-you in turn. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything at all.

 _Thinking about this won’t get me anywhere,_ Byleth thinks to himself.

“You’re right,” Sothis tells him. She’s sitting beside him, swinging her legs in the air and tapping her fingers on the table impatiently. “You’ll only get somewhere if you actually talk to him, you dense fool.”

 _It’s not like I_ want _to talk to hi—_

“If you’re thinking about it so intently, then you obviously do! Go ahead and do something about it. I don’t want to have to listen to you think about him all night if you don’t.”

She has a point, but. _He’s probably asleep by now, anyway._

There’s no response for a moment, before Sothis sighs. “Fine. Next time. Perhaps you should visit him in the library again.”

The idea admittedly has merit, but Byleth isn’t about to let her know that. He tunes back in to what Father is saying, but he only catches the tail end—“Teach him how to fight properly one of these days, will you?”—and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

“What?”

Father lifts his arms in a what-can-he-do gesture. “I’ve tried, you know, during class. But he’s always half-asleep and he doesn’t know the first thing about holding a sword, much less any other weapon. I’m no good at magic either, so we’re in two different worlds. But…” He gives Byleth a scrutinizing look, like _Byleth’s_ got anything to do with this. “I’ve seen him look at you during lectures sometimes, when he’s not sleeping in class. And he actually looks _awake._ Maybe he wants to be your friend or something. Just try to get him to pay attention sometimes, will you?”

 _He looks at me?_ Byleth had never noticed before, but then his attention is always drifting during class, especially since he knows nearly everything Father is talking about. He tends to use the time reading the books he’d borrowed from the library instead, even though some of them bore him to tears. For him not to notice someone’s gaze— _Linhardt’s_ gaze—means he’s let his guard down much more than he thought he had.

The thought shames him, and looking up at Father confirms Father’s thinking much the same. So Byleth says, “Sure,” and decides this is a promise his future self will just have to deal with.

“Studying magic?”

Byleth whirls around, nearly unsheathing his sword—Sothis flails her arms in the air to get him to stop. This is a habit he should probably learn to control more often, but it really isn’t normal for people to sneak up on him so easily like this. Behind him, Linhardt stands there, a small stack of books in his arms—the creased spines tell Byleth they’re all about Crests. “I didn’t think you were interested in it,” Linhardt says, cocking his head to the side a little.

“Not really,” Byleth says. “But I thought I should learn. I don’t want to be left behind.”

Linhardt stares at him, expression unreadable, for several long moments. Byleth returns the stare. He doesn’t count how much time passes until Linhardt finally offers, “I could teach you. If you like.”

“Teach me magic?”

“Just the basics. I don’t fancy myself a very good teacher.” Linhardt turns away, placing his books on the table Byleth has seen him sit down by most often. “You can consider it thanks, if you want to,” Linhardt adds, not looking up at him as he sits down to flip a book open, “for… the canyon.”

“Oh,” Byleth murmurs. _So he’d say a thank-you, after all._ He’d never gotten around to speaking with Linhardt after the bandits at the canyon, until now. “Thank you, too,” he finally says, shuffling over to take the seat across Linhardt’s and setting his own textbooks down. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Really?” Linhardt raises an eyebrow. There’s scorn in his voice, but it doesn’t sound like it’s directed at Byleth. “It felt more like I was slowing you down.”

“No.” Byleth looks at him. “You did great. Better than I could have done on my own.”

For some reason, it’s that comment that gets a significant reaction out of Linhardt—faint color rises to his cheeks, and he gives Byleth the sort of look that makes Byleth wonder if he’d said something wrong. “How embarrassing,” he murmurs. “I’m not used to such praise.”

 _Praise?_ Byleth’s not sure if that counts as praise, but running the words in his head again, he supposes he had meant it as such. Linhardt doesn’t seem to hate it, nor does he seem to _like_ it, but Byleth’s never been the best at reading people outside of what move in battle they would make next, and Linhardt’s about as unreadable as someone can get. After another second to mull it over, he gives up and opens the first textbook on his pile.

Faith magic. Just perfect, for someone who’s had about zero exposure to the Church until about a month ago.

“You can read those first,” Linhardt says, entirely focused on his own book. Byleth can see an odd illustration on the left page, several curved lines forming some intricate pattern that looks vaguely familiar. “Theory before application. If there’s anything you don’t understand…” Reluctance crosses his expression for a moment, like he’s beginning to regret offering help. “Well. You can ask me. I can’t promise an understandable answer, unfortunately.”

That’s fair. Byleth nods and redirects his attention to the book, head already beginning to swim.

By the time he’s gone through the whole thing and (more or less) understood the basics of how faith magic works, the library has emptied out, leaving only the two of them sitting in the dying candlelight—Byleth had thought of a few questions throughout the how-many-hours they had spent sitting together in silence, but Linhardt had looked so concentrated that he hadn’t wanted to disturb him, deciding it might be better to save them for later. And yet, even when sunlight had stopped coming in through the windows, Linhardt still looks as focused on his book as he had been since they’d first sat down.

 _How do you direct faith magic?_ Byleth wants to ask. _How can you cure poison? How do you focus Physic on one person without casting it on the enemy by accident? How does the Nosferatu spell work?_

Linhardt turns a page. Beside them, the candles grow shorter and shorter.

“You two are still here?” someone asks—Byleth looks up to meet eyes with the librarian Tomas, a kind smile on his wrinkled face. “I recommend heading back to the dorms soon, or you’ll ruin your eyes reading in the dark like this.”

“Right,” Byleth says, glancing at Linhardt across him. He hasn’t so much as twitched, much less looked away from his book. “We’re almost done. I can lock up for you, if you like.”

“How polite. Thank you, but it’s fine. I’ll be here a while longer.” And Tomas hobbles off to some other corner of the library.

Byleth looks back at Linhardt. “Linhardt,” he tries, “it’s getting late.”

Nothing.

“We’ve probably missed dinner by now.”

Still nothing.

Byleth glances down at Linhardt’s book. “Crests are rather fascinating, aren’t they.”

Linhardt’s head snaps up like a spring—Byleth very nearly jumps back. “Crests?” he repeats, blinking rapidly, like he’d forgotten to do so for the past several hours. Byleth’s never seen him so awake and interested in something before. “Are you studying them too, Byleth? I have a feeling you’ve got one, even if you don’t seem to be of noble lineage. I don’t think you notice, but when you’re fighting, its pattern manifests every now and then, and I notice your strikes speeding up and increasing in power whenever it does so. Interesting, right?”

“Ah,” Byleth says, when he realizes the pause Linhardt is allowing is meant for him to reply, “yes.”

Linhardt smiles, free and uncaring. His uncharacteristic enthusiasm and undivided attention is making Byleth feel like the world’s beginning to tip out of orbit. “That’s what I thought. So I’ve looked up some of the Crests that were said to have been lost to time, but I haven’t found any worth reading into. Unless you recognize any of the patterns here?”

He snatches a sheet of paper off the desk and practically shoves it in Byleth’s face—it’s covered in neat, symmetrical drawings of what Byleth supposes are Crests, though none of them strike him as particularly… well, Byleth-like. There are notes scrawled in the margins and below each of the Crests, likely about their capabilities, but Linhardt’s handwriting is near-impossible to decipher.

Then one of them, the sketch of a pattern at the bottom-right corner of the paper, catches Byleth’s eye. The same one he had seen on the book Linhardt had been reading—it’s barely familiar at first, and Byleth almost chalks it up to seeing it on a textbook before he remembers what Professor Hanneman had done.

The Crest Analyzer. The odd symbol that showed up. The professor’s glee at a rare Crest he said he hadn’t recognized.

“This one,” Byleth says, pointing at the mystery Crest.

He doesn’t get the chance to even attempt reading Linhardt’s handwriting before Linhardt lays the paper back down on the desk and stares at it for a moment, wordlessly. When he looks back up at Byleth, his blue eyes are almost _shining._ “The Crest of Flames,” he breathes. His pale, thin fingers trace the pattern slowly; Byleth, irrationally enough, wants to push his hand away before the ink smudges on his skin. “It can’t be. This… its only known bearer was the King of Liberation, over a thousand years ago. There are barely any records about it in here at all.” He looks up at Byleth again. “How?”

 _How what?_ Byleth wants to ask. Something in Linhardt’s eyes makes him feel like a test subject. Or worse, prey being hunted down by its predator. “I don’t know,” Byleth manages, trying not to squirm under the unexpected intensity of Linhardt’s gaze. “Professor Hanneman used his Crest Analyzer for me. That pattern came up. I assumed…”

But he stops talking, because Linhardt doesn’t seem to be paying attention anymore, bent over his notes and muttering to himself. “Professor Hanneman’s Crest Analyzer is infallible, so it can’t be a mistake… but to have this Crest, you’d need to be a descendant of the King of Liberation, and that’s simply impossible, he didn’t _have_ any descendants… or at least any that were recorded in the history books… and it’s possible he kept them hidden to prevent them from being killed in the war against Seiros…”

Linhardt’s talking far too fast for Byleth to keep up with him, and even after he had read about the war between Saint Seiros and the King of Liberation in _A History of Fódlan,_ he’s never been very good at thinking quickly outside the battlefield. He’s also incredibly sleepy and half his brain seems dedicated to thinking about what may be left in the dining hall for dinner, so. “Linhardt?” Byleth tries.

Mercifully enough, Linhardt breaks off from his musings to glance up at Byleth. The somewhat manic look in his eyes fades away, replaced by something Byleth guesses might be embarrassment. “Oh,” he says, sounding much less excitable now, “I talked too much again, didn’t I.”

It’s not a question, and therefore doesn’t need an answer, but Byleth thinks it deserves one anyway. “I think it’s fine. I learned a lot.”

Despite Byleth’s attempt at a compliment, Linhardt sighs lightly and ducks his gaze away from him, picking at the corner of a page instead. “You don’t need to lie, though I appreciate the effort. Did you really understand a word I said?”

“The Crest of Flames,” Byleth hastily says. _That,_ at least, seems important. “I’m not so sure if I actually have it, based on what you said. And I don’t _think_ I’m a descendant of the King of Liberation. I’d know about it, wouldn’t I? So… it’s possible the results of that Crest analysis are faulty. But since you mentioned it’s infallible, then that… opens up a… large variety of theories.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken that much in his life.

Linhardt is staring at him blankly when he falls quiet, and the silence stretches on long enough that Byleth wonders if he had gotten it all wrong after all before Linhardt leans across the table, that little smile back on his face. Relief rushes through Byleth like the warmth of healing magic—he likes that expression on Linhardt far more than what the avoidance of eye contact means. “You were listening,” Linhardt murmurs, “and you understood. And you… care.”

Byleth blinks. “Of course I do.” It’s about him, after all, and his supposed Crest. His supposed lost-to-time, only-held-by-a-historical-dictator-from-a-thousand-years-ago Crest.

Another pause, before Linhardt shakes his head. “Of course you do,” he says, leaning back in his seat.

“Shall we go now? It’s getting late, and we’ve probably missed dinner,” Byleth suggests, repeating his words from earlier. Now that Linhardt doesn’t seem hyper-focused on either his book or the conversation, he’s beginning to look more like his usual, sleepy, droopy-eyed self.

“Hmm… yes. I suppose. Let me check out these books first. Ah, you didn’t have to wait here for me,” Linhardt adds, gaze flicking over to Byleth from over the volumes he stacks up in his arms. “And I thought you were studying magic.”

“I am,” Byleth assures him. He gathers Linhardt’s notes up, scattered across the table as they are, and slips them between the pages of the topmost book he’s holding. Linhardt shoots him a grateful smile, which Byleth tries not to look directly at. “I didn’t want to disturb you, though.”

“How nice of you. Well, if we can still get something in the dining hall, then you can ask me your questions. I’m not certain if I…” He cuts himself off with a yawn, the sound familiar to Byleth by this point, from all the times he’s heard it during class. “If I can answer adequately. I’ll try, of course.”

“Of course.”

But Linhardt doesn’t bring it up when they get to the dining hall, and Byleth conveniently forgets to ask anything in turn.


	3. garland moon — “don’t talk. it’s making my job harder.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catherine and the other Knights of Seiros halt in their tracks ahead of them, and Father makes a sweeping motion for them to stay in place. Byleth tenses on instinct—Father’s made that same gesture dozens of times back during their merc days, and it almost always meant to be on guard for enemies in the area as well—but he can see the rest of his classmates tighten in a defensive circle. They’re still not used to real fights, and he can’t blame them for that.
> 
> From the corner of his eyes, Byleth spots Linhardt between Caspar and Hubert, his expression blank but his hands trembling over his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[i’ll hum the song the soldiers sing as they march outside our window](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kLpH6AXL8M) _
> 
> posted this late bc i forgot to yesterday lol... thank u for the kudos & comments!! each one makes my day c:

“Are you used to fighting even in fog like this, Byleth?”

Apart from Father, Byleth thinks Dorothea is the one who talks to him the most among the Black Eagles. Not just because they get paired up during lectures or something like that, too, but because she actively searches him out (or, more accurately, hounds him down) and strikes up conversations as easy as can be, a skill Byleth has unfortunately never quite managed to master. Or even learn, for that matter.

“Not really,” Byleth says, after a moment’s consideration. “This fog isn’t natural. It’s too thick for this part of the woods.” He’s traveled here with Father and the rest of the mercenaries a few times in the past, but it’s never been this foggy before. And there’s something about how it feels on his skin—a tingling all over, like a full-body invisible itch—that comes from being used to the natural wilderness, something he doubts these nobles can feel.

“I am in agreement,” Petra says, falling into step beside Dorothea. Byleth likes her, too. They’ve exchanged sword fighting techniques more than a few times whenever they bump into each other at the training grounds at odd hours of the day, usually five in the morning. “This fog… itches. Er, I am afraid I do not know the proper word for this sensation, but…”

Byleth shakes his head. “No, I feel it too. It’s almost artificial.”

“Perhaps it’s magic,” Dorothea offers thoughtfully. “But it doesn’t feel like anything like reason or faith magic…”

They’re cut short when Catherine and the other Knights of Seiros halt in their tracks ahead of them, and Father makes a sweeping motion for them to stay in place. Byleth tenses on instinct—Father’s made that same gesture dozens of times back during their merc days, and it almost always meant to be on guard for enemies in the area as well—but he can see the rest of his classmates tighten in a defensive circle. They’re still not used to real fights, and he can’t blame them for that.

From the corner of his eyes, Byleth spots Linhardt between Caspar and Hubert, his expression blank but his hands trembling over his chest.

“Split into your groups,” Father barks out, only turning around long enough to make sure the Black Eagles scramble to follow the orders he’s been drilling into them for the past month. “Use the forest if you need to, but stay close and on guard. Remember, our target’s Lonato, so avoid casualties if you can. Magic users, cast Fire if you need to. Good luck.”

The three groups scatter quick after that, and not a moment too soon, because arrows begin flying out of nowhere and Byleth doesn’t plan on sticking around too long for that. Bernadetta, one of his “groupmates”—that’s probably the most appropriate term, but it still makes it sound like this is all for some class project—follows him like a fleeing rabbit into the woods, but the other two are slower by a second, and an arrow strays too close to their heads for comfort before they duck behind the nearby trees.

“Catherine will lead the frontal assault,” Byleth says. He likes going over the strategy plan in his head before and during the actual battle, but he’s never had to say it out loud like this before, with three pairs of eyes trained on him. He swallows. “Father will stick south, and Dorothea’s group will provide support for Catherine. We pick through the forest to prevent anyone hiding here from ambushing the others.”

Bernadetta nods timidly. They don’t speak much—Byleth rarely sees her outside her room, honestly—but Father talks to him about everyone during dinner sometimes, and she’s good at following instructions and staying out of trouble, although she tends to prioritize the latter over the former. “Bernadetta, please keep an eye out for anyone who might be approaching us from behind.”

“Like—Like a sniper?” she squeaks.

He hadn’t thought of that comparison, but he’ll take it. “Yes. Your archery skills are better than any of us here, and you have good eyesight.”

She pales even further at that. “I m-meant if I had to take out snipers, too, because they’d probably t-take me out, first—but, I—o-okay…”

“I can go in front!” Caspar nearly shouts, raising his hand in the air like he’s reciting in class. For a moment, Byleth feels oddly like Father right now, giving instructions when no one had asked him to because he’s the most experienced among them. “I’ve got good eyesight too! This fog’s no problem!”

Byleth nods. “Alright. We can stay in front and pick the way through.”

And now—their last member. Byleth swallows again, and turns to face Linhardt.

He remembers, vividly, the evening Father had split the class into groups for this exact battle—he’d been hunched over the dining table when Byleth had set his food down, having just come from the library (where Linhardt hadn’t been—but he tries not to think about that). Father had looked up at him, more tired than usual, and asked him to go over the groups for a second opinion.

“I can’t separate von Hresvelg and von Vestra, or the latter’ll poison my damn breakfast,” Father grumbled, tapping the names scribbled on the creased, tea-stained paper. “Which is fine, really, I wanna keep a closer eye on them when we’re in a battle. So they’re with me. Macneary and Arnault work well together, physical and magical strength, and von Aegir’s decent at everything, so he can round them out. That leaves you and these three.”

Byleth, predictably enough, had fixated on the name _von Hevring_ and found himself unable to look away from it. “Ah.”

Father had raised an eyebrow. “‘Ah?’ You’ll have to give me something a little more concrete, kid. You think you can work well with them? They’re a… varied bunch, that’s for sure.”

“Hm.”

“If you don’t like one of these brats,” Father said, rolling his eyes, “you can say so. Do I look like I’m gonna rat you out to them or something?”

“Well. No.” Byleth had tried not to look visibly uncomfortable. He had probably failed. “This is a good group, I think. Bernadetta is a better archer than she gives herself credit for, from what I know. Caspar is good with close combat and frontal attacks. Linhardt—” He pretended not to stumble over the name for a moment—“can provide support in between them. It’s balanced.”

He hadn’t been able to talk to Linhardt since their conversation in the library, and until now, Byleth doesn’t know what to say. Though he isn’t the best at observing things outside of the battlefield, he had noticed Linhardt sleeping more often than usual in class and the dark circles beneath his eyes growing darker throughout the week. It’s a little worrying, especially considering he still looks exhausted now, neck-deep in enemy territory and with little way to heal himself if he gets hurt.

Byleth sighs. “Can you keep up a Fire spell? Just enough to light the area around us, not too much to attract the enemies’ attention.”

Linhardt nods, though it’s barely an inclination of his head. Without a word, he lifts his hand up in his typical lackadaisical manner and flicks his wrist. A faint fireball comes to life, hovering above his open palm.

“Good. Thank you.” And then, when Byleth makes sure Bernadetta and Caspar are busy talking to each other, he quietly adds, “You might have to fight today. Are you ready?”

The tension in the air pulls taut as a string—Linhardt looks at him, eyes dull, then down at the grass beneath their feet. “I don’t know,” he admits. His voice sounds rough, as if from lack of recent use. “But thank you for the concern.”

They run into an ambush almost immediately, a Gaspard soldier sneaking up on—as expected—Linhardt from the side, probably aiming to blindside him and snuff out their source of light, but Bernadetta acts fast and fires an arrow that catches the soldier on his shoulder. Caspar pounces with his gauntlets, hitting the man harsh and swift at the back of his head and leaving him to fall limply on the grass. “Unconscious,” Caspar immediately says, turning first to Linhardt then to Byleth, as if looking for validation.

“Good.” Byleth pauses. “These are townspeople. They… shouldn’t be fighting.”

Beside him, he thinks he sees Linhardt sigh.

More soldiers keep coming from there, but only one by one, as if they had focused their numbers on the edge of the forest to attack Catherine and the others, and it’s relatively easy to pick them off four-on-one. Byleth hangs back, letting Caspar and Bernadetta get some experience in, and offers tips when he can; Linhardt stays behind as well, though likely for entirely different reasons.

Byleth waits for when the other two seem sufficiently distracted before slowing his pace to match it with Linhardt’s. “Are you alright?” he asks.

The flame in Linhardt’s hand flickers for a moment, as if surprised, by Linhardt lets nothing show on his face. “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.”

“You don’t look fine,” Byleth carefully presses. He has no experience in conversations like this, and he doesn’t want to bother Linhardt too much.

It’s silent for another moment, and Byleth starts going over some excuses to get back to Caspar’s side at the front and leave Linhardt alone, but then Linhardt sighs and shakes his head. “I’ve been thinking about having to go into battle again since Professor informed us of this mission some weeks ago. And now I’m here. I still… am not quite ready, I believe.”

“To fight?”

He swallows, nods. That blank facade falls away a little, and somehow the light from the fire makes the bags beneath Linhardt’s eyes that much darker. “It’s not about getting hurt, although there is that. I just… don’t want to—”

The fog abruptly clears.

Linhardt cuts himself off, standing perfectly still, his fire winking out and leaving them in semi-darkness while Caspar and Bernadetta rush to come closer. Byleth takes a moment to breathe, to give Linhardt what he hopes is a reassuring nod, and surveys their surroundings—without the fog, the trees are certainly clearer, but there’s not much else to take note of. Yet the silence that’s descended feels suspicious, feels deadly, and Byleth’s never ignored his intuition.

From behind, a twig snaps.

Byleth whirls around, but Bernadetta is already moving, her hands shaking when she looses an arrow into the dark gaps between trees—it _thunks_ against something that lets out an _oof,_ and then the sound of a body slumping onto the grass. For one tense second, nothing happens—and then Byleth has to shoulder the other three to the ground before a number of arrows find home in their necks. When he scours the darkness, he can see it—vague outlines of men, but men all the same. “Cover! There are more of them!”

Caspar grabs Linhardt’s arm and rushes the both of them behind a sturdy tree trunk, while Bernadetta—Byleth doesn’t get to see where she goes before he’s turning around to deflect a soldier and his lance. He pushes him off, sidesteps the man’s strikes and cuts into his arm deep. The man falls, exposing his head just long enough for Byleth to remember himself and thumps his head with the hilt of his sword. _No killing. No killing._

 _These are townspeople,_ he reminds himself. _Linhardt doesn’t like blood,_ he reminds himself.

There are already more men surrounding him, taking advantage of how he hadn’t dived for cover like he’d told the others to—Byleth swings his sword in a wide arc, catching two soldiers in the torso and pushing them further back, but one of them dodges and yells as he lifts an axe above his head. Byleth scrambles backwards, but he’s too slow, too slow—

An arrow digs deep into the man’s back. He stops mid-motion, swaying dangerously, and falls on his face. Byleth only has a second to check that the arrow hadn’t hit anything vital before he has to move again, more soldiers pouring out of the shadows to converge around him. The arrow had come from across him, so he makes the fastest decision of his life and turns the other way—if he led the soldiers towards Bernadetta, she’d freeze up and he knows no archer does well in close combat. But they know these woods better than him, and he’s bound to get stuck between one group and the other if they decide to split up and trap him—

“Byleth! Over here!”

Byleth doesn’t hesitate before diving behind the copse of trees, nearly smacking face-first into a startled Caspar (or more accurately almost hitting Caspar’s face with his chest, but anyway). Behind him is Linhardt, his pale skin standing out in the shadows like moonlight. “You’re okay, right? Where’s Bernadetta?” Caspar casts a look around them, and the worry in his expression grows more apparent at her absence. “We gotta get back to her! No way can she stand up to all those guys by herself if they find her!”

“Don’t rush,” Linhardt says. He’s picking at the sleeve of his uniform, hands visibly trembling. “Bernadetta won’t be found so quickly. She spends enough time hiding in the monastery to serve as practice for this.” He looks at Byleth, and it almost physically hurts to see how frayed his nerves obviously are. “But I agree. We don’t know these woods as well as the soldiers do.”

“I know her general location,” Byleth starts, though he means _general_ the same way he means _incredibly vague._ “If we retrace our steps back to where they first attacked, we can probably find her; I doubt she moved from where she was. But it’s safe to say these soldiers have a healer with them, considering the men we took down earlier were there, so it would be pointless to engage in battle unless we can take out their monk.”

Caspar rubs at his face. In the dark, Byleth can just barely make out a dark splotch of something he hopes is mud or dirt. “Ugh. Gotcha.”

They trek back through the forest as silently as possible, ducking behind trees at the slightest sound. Beyond the woods, Byleth can make out fainter noises of battle, but they seem further up ahead, where he suspects Lonato is. Good. The sooner they take him down, the sooner they can leave, too. Briefly, he wonders how Father’s and Dorothea’s groups are doing, both of them likely more engaged in the bigger battle.

Something rustles beside them, and all three of them stiffen. Caspar surges forward, flexing his arms, and Linhardt backs away, hands shaking as he brings them up to his chest—

“W-W-Wait! It’s just me! Don’t hurt me!”

Byleth feels an indescribable weight lift from his chest. “Bernadetta?”

Bernadetta tumbles out of a clump of bushes, leaves sticking out of her hair and mud all over her uniform. She digs her half-depleted quiver of arrows out from the bushes, then sags onto the grass with a defeated cry. “I t-thought I was done for!” she wails. “I c-couldn’t hear anything anymore, I thought what if they f-forgot about me and left me behind and I’d have to make it back to the monastery alone and, and—”

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay! We’re here! No one’s leaving you behind, Bern!” Caspar fumbles with his arms for a moment, like he doesn’t know what course of action to take to comfort a crying Bernadetta, before finally settling for awkwardly patting her shoulder. “Come on, the fight’s almost done. Now that we’ve found you, we can get the hell out of this freaking forest. But, uh, not so loud, ‘cause the soldiers—”

“ _They’re still here?_ ” Bernadetta squeals, though thankfully softly. She scrambles to her feet, slinging her quiver over her shoulder and pointing her battered bow around, as if expecting a soldier to come leaping out of the darkness. In fairness, that _had_ been what happened last time. “What are we waiting for! Let’s leave already, please!”

They sneak around the forest’s shadows, crouching behind bushes whenever footsteps come too close for comfort, until they finally get to its northernmost part where they can see Lonato up ahead, pacing anxiously on a small stone structure complete with a healing tile. No sign of Catherine or the others—Byleth tries not to sigh and herds the three of them a little further back to hide comfortably behind some trees. “Lord Lonato is still there.”

Bernadetta moans and crumples to the ground; Linhardt carefully pats her back. Caspar looks close to dragging his hands over his face, gauntlets and all. “Why do we have to… you know, anyway?” he grumbles. “I mean, isn’t he Ashe’s dad? Adoptive dad, anyway.”

 _Who?_ Byleth almost asks, before catching himself and cycling through his mental roster of the students in other Houses. Ashe, Ashe, Ashe… the name brings up light-colored hair and soft green eyes, but nothing else. Certainly nothing that will help answer Caspar’s question. “He rebelled against the Church. That’s… all I know.”

 _All Father knows, too._ The Archbishop hadn’t said much—and Byleth would know, because he’d been there when Seteth had explained their mission, though most of the details had already flown out of his head. His merc mindset had conditioned him to follow the clients’ orders without bothering to ask questions—his time at the monastery has softened him enough to start doing just that.

But he shakes his head. “There’s no point wondering about this. Let’s stay and wait for the oth—”

None of them see the glint of an arrow until it hits. Caspar blinks, opens his mouth, and then crumples to the ground.

“Back!” Byleth shouts, hoping Linhardt can pull Caspar away—two Gaspard soldiers, both wielding axes, step out of the darkness to sneer at him. There must be an archer behind them, then, but there are considerably less men than earlier. They had probably split up to cover more area, which means Byleth can’t risk letting this fight get too loud or last too long, else that will just lead to their enemies multiplying.

He makes the mistake of looking behind him to check on Caspar, and almost gets his head sliced off for it—Byleth coughs as he ducks beneath the axe’s blade, then leaps sloppily to the side when the other soldier tries to catch his torso. At this angle, he can see Linhardt bent over Caspar, an arrow sticking out of his upper back, but Bernadetta is nowhere to be found. _Hiding?_ He doesn’t have the luxury of looking around elsewhere, because the soldiers are rushing him again, and Byleth can only rely on his instincts to avoid two men at once, dodging and weaving as best as he can in such a cramped space. He swings his sword exactly once, but all that gets him is a deep nick on an innocent tree trunk.

Something whizzes past him, barely a hair away from his nose—an arrow finds home in one of the soldiers’ shoulders, but he only growls after stumbling backwards and yanks the arrow out to snap in half. Byleth chances a glance, reaffirms by its making that it’s Bernadetta’s, and rushes to take advantage of the soldier’s wound and slashes near-blindly. The soldier howls—Byleth cuts deeper, feels something _give,_ and then hears some unidentifiable thing _thump_ on the ground. _Ah,_ he thinks, drawing his sword back from the screaming man, _his arm, I must have…_

No time to think. He leaps back just as the other soldier catches his side, but Byleth tells himself the wound that opens up is nothing, even when he can feel the sting of pain that promises something much more intense in the near future. He skids backwards, looks wildly around him in the forest’s darkness, sees the gleam of an axe close in his chest—

His vision goes a dizzying black-and-white, stars spasming in his eyes, until Byleth manages to lean against a nearby tree trunk—he lifts a shaky hand to his chest, and is far from surprised when his palm comes away red. _How careless,_ he tells himself, trying to keep his eyes from closing. _I can’t stay here, I have to… the others…_

Bernadetta can’t take on the soldier with her arrows alone—Caspar might still be injured—Linhardt— _Linhardt—_

Something warm suffuses Byleth’s chest, and he no longer has to squint to see—the glow of faith magic casts a faint light, enough to see Linhardt _(when had he gotten here?)_ kneeling over him _(when had he slid to the ground?)_ , his eyes screwed shut as his trembling hands work their magic. It’s slow-going, but Byleth can feel the wound stitching itself back up, though there’s no getting rid of the blood. “Sorry,” he coughs out.

“What?” Linhardt murmurs, not opening his eyes.

“I… I didn’t want you to see…”

Linhardt makes a frustrated noise. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about that.”

“The soldier—”

“Dealt with.” There’s a shaky undertone to his voice, and Byleth wonders, briefly, how the man had been _dealt with._ “Please. Don’t talk. It’s making my job harder.”

“Sorry,” Byleth mumbles again. _How is Caspar? Where’s Bernadetta?_ He wants to ask, but figures Linhardt would probably just scold him further, even if they’re perfectly valid questions. He watches Linhardt as he keeps healing, sees the furrow of his brow and the scrunch of his nose—sees the splatter of blood on pale, pale skin.

Byleth doesn’t think when he reaches up to rub the blood off of Linhardt’s cheek with the cleaner part of his coat. Linhardt’s eyes fly open and he jerks away, his magic sputtering and winking out—and instantly the pain crashes back to Byleth, so much more terrible and intense now that he can actually feel it. “What are you doing?” Linhardt hisses.

“Are you hurt?” Byleth returns, sitting up straighter—and surging forward, ignoring the dizziness that nearly makes him tumble over his head, when he sees the arrow sticking out of Linhardt’s side. “This—”

“Lie down,” Linhardt says, panic creeping into his voice and gaze pointedly avoiding him, “your injury is far worse, I assure you—” but Byleth isn’t listening, isn’t thinking, isn’t really _anything_ at all when he nudges the arrow. Linhardt abruptly stops talking, his words replaced by a sharp, shuddering inhale. “Byleth,” Linhardt whispers, “we can deal with that _later—_ ”

Byleth tunes him out. The arrowhead isn’t serrated, thankfully—though it’s buried deep in Linhardt’s side, he can feel that much, he’s more than used to these weapons after spending enough time with the archers in the mercenary group. There is no real painless way to deal with anything that’s already embedded within you, though the bishops had a way of casting some sort of Heal spell strong enough that the knife or arrow clattered out by itself. Something about having enough faith, but Byleth had never paid any attention.

He wishes he had, now, as he places a hand above the wound and prays, desperately, to the goddess the Church is so fond of.

Nothing happens, at first, and Byleth has to hold onto Linhardt’s wrist to keep himself steady—but then he feels it, that now-familiar warmth gathering along his palm and spreading down to the injury. The sensation is entirely new; for a moment it feels like he’s connected to Linhardt, feels the wound sting his side as vividly as if it were in him as well, but more than that he can feel an odd influx of emotions—pain, concern, surprise, something like awe.

 _Linhardt’s_ emotions, Byleth realizes.

The arrow doesn’t look anywhere close to moving by itself, so Byleth mutters a quick apology before grasping it and pulling it out himself. Linhardt sucks in another sharp breath, but doesn’t move—Byleth keeps the rudimentary Heal spell up and hopes faith is enough for just this, rather than any actual medical knowledge. Eventually, he can feel the wound close up (he doesn’t know _how,_ he just _does)_ and there’s no sign of blood, so Byleth pulls his hand away, the glow fading almost reluctantly back to nothing.

And then the exhaustion hits him head-on. He feels himself sway unsteadily, hears himself groan, and then there are hands gently guiding him to lean back against a tree. “Exerting yourself when you’re already exerted,” Linhardt sighs—and then the calming, healing warmth is back on his chest for a few moments, gone the moment the pain from the axe wound disappears as well. “Rest. I’ll make sure Caspar and Bernadetta are alright.”

Byleth strains his ears for sounds of fighting, but everything’s already begun to fade into white noise. He lets it.

“…few casualties, thankfully, but a soldier had his entire arm from the shoulder down cut off with a sword, and another two were sliced into pieces with what might be wind magic gone wrong. They were in the forest, so—” Father pauses, and jabs Byleth’s cheek with the handle of his spoon. “ _Hey._ You listening?”

Byleth blinks. “Yes.” Father stares at him a little harder, and Byleth leans forward in a rather pathetic attempt to look like he had been paying attention. “What about the forest?”

Father sighs. “Did you cut someone’s arm off?”

Pause. “Might have,” Byleth admits. “It was dark. Couldn’t see much.”

“Figures it’d be you. I can’t see any of those nobles dismembering someone with gauntlets and arrows.” Father shakes his head. “But there were two other bodies nearby. You probably know what happened to them?”

Byleth debates between shaking his head and staying still—he had more or less figured it out during the trek back to the monastery, through Linhardt’s silence and shaking, blood-stained hands, but thinking about Linhardt getting any magic spells _wrong_ feels odd. Magic is the best choice for someone like him, after all, being much less bloody than traditional weapons, but to consistently cast them incorrectly…

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Father says, looking both exasperated and amused. “Odd, for someone as smart as von Hevring to cast reason magic the weird way. I can’t even help him out much, I don’t know a thing about magic, but… I’ve heard of the Cutting Gale spell before, but I can say for sure it’s not supposed to turn out that bad.”

“I can talk to him about it,” Byleth offers, perhaps a bit too eagerly, because Father raises an eyebrow. “I studied up on magic some time ago,” Byleth hurries to add, careful to leave out the part where it had been _faith_ magic, “and I got a Heal spell working earlier. Though I was half-delirious, I think.”

“ _Half-delirious?_ ”

“Oh. One of the soldiers axed me in the chest.”

Father covers his face with his hands. “Maybe _start with that next time?_ ”

After dinner, Byleth putters uselessly around the dormitories for a moment, trying to figure out which one is Linhardt’s, until Dorothea passes by. “Oh, Byleth,” she greets, smiling that disarming smile of hers. And by _disarming,_ Byleth means _unnerving,_ by virtue of having seen how easy it is for her to manipulate some other students to do her bidding. “Do you need something?”

“Do you know which room is Linhardt’s?”

Dorothea’s eyebrows nearly disappear beneath her hairline. “Linhardt? It’s this one, beside Petra’s.” She points at the door in question, but now the curiosity in her expression is even more evident. “What do you need him for?”

Byleth looks down, unsure of how he’s supposed to reply to that if he doesn’t exactly know the answer himself. It’s too late in the night to hold an impromptu magic lesson _now,_ and coming here just to thank him for doing his job as the designated healer seems a little over-the-top. But he doesn’t want to consistently leave Linhardt alone after every battle where they help each other out, especially since Byleth has a feeling it’s only going to keep happening.

When he looks at Dorothea again, he briefly realizes he had left the silence hanging for far too long for his answer to _not_ be awkward no matter what, so he shrugs and says, “It’s… a secret.” _To both you and me._

“Oh! Oh.” Dorothea stares at him blankly for a second before she nods, seemingly more to herself than him, and turns on her heel. “Sorry for asking! Have fun, then!” And, as she ducks into her own dorm not two rooms away from Linhardt’s, mutters, “That was fast…”

The door closes before Byleth gets the chance to ask if she’s alright, so he turns to face Linhardt’s door instead. It’s unassuming, and looks exactly like the rest of the doors in the dormitories, including Byleth’s own at the end of the corridor. He has no idea why he had half-expected Linhardt’s door to look different, as if to distinguish it from the rest, but he had. Perhaps that axe injury is messing his head up. And he really shouldn’t be standing motionless in front of Linhardt’s door like this.

Byleth sighs. He knocks twice on the wood, then steps back and wonders why he feels so nervous.

No answer. Byleth frowns—he’d seen Linhardt retreat to the dormitories as soon as they’d arrived at the monastery. Perhaps he’d gone up to the library instead? It’s already late, but he supposes that’s rarely, if ever, stopped Linhardt before. Maybe he’s just sleeping—it’s certainly the most likely, Linhardt-ish answer. And yet…

Byleth steps nearer, raising his hand to knock again, when he hears it—the rustle of pages, a muffled swear. “Linhardt?” he tries.

Silence. Then, “Byleth.”

“Are you alright?”

“Why are you here?”

The question stings, though Byleth doesn’t want to dwell on why—maybe it’s the exhaustion in Linhardt’s voice, like he doesn’t want Byleth around, like he doesn’t care at all, and… and why does Byleth care so much, anyway. Why _is_ he here? He hadn’t been able to answer Dorothea a while ago, and he surely doesn’t know how to answer now, either. “I’m… worried,” he finally mumbles. _Worried? Since when have I ever been worried about others? And yet how else am I supposed to describe how I feel?_ “Are you still hurt?”

“Are _you_ still hurt?” Linhardt returns. Byleth presses his ear closer to the door—there’s a strange quality to Linhardt’s voice, but he can’t quite make out what it is. For all he knows, it’s just a product of sound traveling through the door between them. “That axe cut you deeper than the arrow hit me.”

“I’m fine.”

“You should still rest.”

“Did your wind magic go wrong again?”

Another round of silence. “You know,” Linhardt says, voice flat, “that is hardly the best conversation topic I have had the pleasure of being offered.”

“Sorry,” Byleth offers. “But those soldiers—”

“I can’t get it _right,_ ” Linhardt suddenly grinds out, and the sound of a book— _books,_ actually, tumbling onto the floor seems to echo in the silence that follows. Footsteps—Byleth briefly hopes Linhardt will open the door, but they continue in an even rhythm that neither comes closer nor further, which means he must be pacing inside. “I can’t get it right,” Linhardt repeats, softer this time. “Reason magic. It… It always goes wrong.”

Something goes unspoken there—Byleth thinks it might be _I never get these things wrong._

“What do you mean?” Byleth asks instead. He turns around to rest his back against the door.

“Whenever—Whenever I practice it, it’s fine. It’s _right._ My winds are winds. They blow things away, and—and snuff out fires and push books off tables but they’re never _blades,_ they never make things _bleed._ ” Linhardt pauses to breathe, or at least Byleth assumes so, but then he doesn’t speak again for a while. The footsteps persist, growing more agitated with every second. Then, “I… don’t understand.” His voice is low, like the admission pains him to say aloud. “It’s not in any textbook. I can’t… get it right.”

And—Byleth doesn’t know the first thing about magic, really. His Heal spell from earlier had most likely been a miraculous fluke, or Sothis helping him out somehow, because she seems like the sort of person who practices magic, and even so, this is _reason_ magic Linhardt is struggling with, not faith. He doesn’t even know why he’s here, because what can he even do right now? Comfort Linhardt? The thought makes him want to hit himself.

But.

But messing up on the battlefield—it’s not like Byleth’s a stranger to that.

“It’s possible it’s your emotions,” Byleth says, when the silence has dragged on long enough. “The pressure of a battlefield isn’t for everyone. It can help some—boosts their adrenaline or helps them focus. But for others, the real danger that you can’t get during training might affect them.”

A pause. “I don’t want to kill,” Linhardt murmurs. His voice sounds closer, and Byleth can hear something slump against the other side of the door, followed by soft, ragged breathing. “Magic is… bloodless. Cleaner. Further from the carnage. That’s why I…”

He doesn’t continue, but Byleth doesn’t need him to. He sits down, tired from standing for so long, and leans back against the door. There—Linhardt’s breaths sound closer now, more level with him. If the door weren’t between them, they’d be sitting back-to-back with each other, and the thought makes Byleth a little glad the door’s there. Physical contact still isn’t something he thinks he can get used to. “It’s alright.”

“Really?” Linhardt coughs out a strained laugh. “How?”

“You won’t have to fight. Because I’ll do it for you.”

Silence. Byleth hopes he hadn’t said anything wrong, but then he’d spoken something along these lines before, hadn’t he? During the fight with the bandits on the canyon. “I’m sorry you had to do it yourself, a while ago,” he cautiously ventures, when Linhardt still hasn’t said anything. “Next time. I’ll make sure you won’t need to fight. I’ll take care of it.”

There’s another long pause, one Byleth doesn’t really know how to fill up—then Linhardt lets out a sigh, tired and heavy. “You are certainly a strange one,” he mumbles.

“Is it so strange? To fight for you?”

“Is that a promise?”

 _A promise—_ Byleth can’t say he’s had much experience with those before. In a lifestyle like his, where he could die on the battlefield at any moment, promises are little else but fragile frivolities he hardly has the luxury of placing importance in. But there’s something in Linhardt’s voice, hopeful and pleading and curious and desperate all at once, and—Byleth thinks about how he’d looked when he had seen the blood, thinks about the crack in his voice and the arrow in his side.

“Okay. It’s a promise.”

Maybe that’s what promises are for, Byleth supposes. To be fragile. To be protected. To have something to live for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next: cooking duty & teatime!


	4. blue sea moon — “you’re asking for trouble here.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sothis shakes her head indignantly. “You are unbelievable! One day you are going to stuff raw meat down your throat like the unthinking fool you are, and then we’ll both choke to death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ _it’s like the sun came out & the day is clear_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8atXQlSfzQ)
> 
> no plot chapter empty

“An assassination plot?” Edelgard shakes her head in what looks almost like disappointment. “If the enemy were hoping to fool us, they could have at least tried a little harder.”

Byleth’s not so sure about taunting fate like that, but he’s not about to tell her; if there’s anything he’s learned about Edelgard, after all, it’s that she has the blade—or the axe, rather—to back up her bark.

After class, Father had briefed them on their upcoming mission for the month, then assigned some reading homework as more of an afterthought than anything (Byleth would know—Father mutters his lesson plans for the next day under his breath every dinnertime). Then he’d left, and Byleth had already gotten up from his seat, thinking about spending the rest of the day fishing, when the rest of his classmates started talking over one another.

“I agree,” Ferdinand says, flipping through a textbook and marking the page Father had assigned. “It is almost certainly a diversion tactic, isn’t it? Only storybook villains would leave that letter so obviously like that. The real question is what their real target is.”

Dorothea cocks her head. “I’ve heard Garreg Mach houses the most magnificent treasure vault… if I were a villain, I’d certainly love to spend some alone time there.”

“Phoo. You don’t have to be a villain to wanna be there,” Caspar remarks. “If I got some of this monastery’s treasure, I could buy all the food I want!”

“Even without money, you already do,” Linhardt reminds him. “Anyway, I doubt the opponents’ aim would just be money and treasure. They could go after any other noble’s estate if they wanted that, for greater rewards at lesser risk.”

Bernadetta peers up at him from her notebook, eyes narrowed in both suspicion and her customary fear of just about everything. “W-Why… Have you thought about doing that or something?”

Linhardt shrugs, very obviously not answering the question.

“They may perhaps be aiming for the library,” Petra suggests. “I have heard the monastery contains many books that are not… er, that cannot be found elsewhere. Or magic tomes? I have seen a few there on occasion.”

Byleth listens halfheartedly to Hubert ask about these magic tomes when Dorothea nudges him. If there’s anything else Byleth appreciates about Dorothea, it’s that she makes a genuine effort to be in his line of sight before addressing him, which Byleth can unfortunately not say for many other people in this classroom. “What do you think, Byleth? You’re awful quiet. Did the professor tell you anything?”

“Not really.” Byleth searches for something else to say, though he really doesn’t know more than the rest of his classmates—it’s probably because of how little he actually cares about the situation, but that’s not something he’s going to tell them. “We should probably ask around. There are plenty of places in the monastery that will be more vulnerable to intruders with lessened security.”

“Hm, ever the smart one. I wish more people were like you,” Dorothea sighs. “Nice, quiet, use their heads… but you don’t seem to talk much, do you?”

“I don’t have a lot to say,” Byleth replies. In truth, most of his thoughts are occupied by eating and fishing, both activities he has learned to appreciate much more during his time in the monastery, but he doubts those make very interesting topics for conversation. Which is fine, because he doesn’t even like conversations very much—far too troublesome.

Dorothea just smiles at him. It’s a nice smile. It’s also not the smile Byleth’s noticed she reserves for people she’s trying to flirt with, which is something of a relief. “Well, aren’t you mysterious, too.”

“What…” Byleth stares at the. Thing. Ferdinand has just handed him. “Is this.”

Ferdinand beams his signature grin, although there’s a hint of confusion in it. “Why, a tea set, of course! I am surprised you, er, cannot tell. I happened to have some extra ones lying around in my room, and they hardly do anyone any good gathering dust, do they?”

“I… I suppose?” Byleth manages. Ferdinand talks too fast, and he worries he talks too slow. Conversations with him are always a struggle, although Byleth doesn’t blame him. “But… what do I do with it?”

“Oh! Don’t tell me you do not drink tea?” Ferdinand frets. “If so, I must request you to start now! Perhaps you had not had the means of doing so while being a mercenary? You have been sorely missing out, I assure you, tea is simply wonderful—”

“No, I do drink tea,” Byleth meekly manages. Ferdinand, mercifully enough, only looks curiously at him to continue rather than speaking right away again. “Just not very often. But this is a set for two people, isn’t it?”

Ferdinand brightens. It’s a little like staring at the sun, orange hair and all. “Yes! Exactly. Tea is a gift that must be shared with others. Drinking it by oneself has its merits, but it is far more enjoyable with other people, is it not?”

“Ah… er… yes, I suppose…”

Byleth’s supposed to be at the kitchen right now, having been assigned on cooking duty, and there’s no time to run back to the dorms and leave the tea set there; all he can do is hurry to the kitchens and place it somewhere innocuous where no one will question its presence. Thankfully, the rest of the monastery chefs use a different kitchen—this section is reserved for the students in particular, for reasons Byleth decides he doesn’t need to know about—and the area is still empty when Byleth arrives.

He tucks the delicate tea set away behind a sizeable microwave and checks the meal assignment posted on the bulletin board—he fixates on the word _fish_ and lets out an incredible sigh of relief. Few things can make him quite as nervous as having to prepare a meal he knows nothing about, with or without a recipe. There’s a reason Father has never let him near a frying pan ever again without the main ingredient being fish or meat, after all.

Still, most duties are assigned in pairs. Byleth casts a cursory glance around the kitchen, vaguely hoping for his partner to conveniently pop into existence, but no such luck. So he’s on his own, then. Wonderful. At least no one will get caught in a fire—if one should occur, of course.

Byleth gets to work. There’s really no other way to describe it. Cooking isn’t a romantic process for him, that much is for sure, and he lets his mind wander while he waits for the stove to heat. _Reading assignment is done… not that it was anything new… I still have to work on flying lessons. And ask around for any vulnerable areas during the Rite of Rebirth._ Honestly, what are the odds they’d be able to find the place their opponents are targeting anyway? The monastery is huge, dizzyingly so, enough that Byleth still hasn’t memorized its entire layout. He only knows the route from his room to the library and the dining hall, and that’s about it. And to the classrooms, when he isn’t awkwardly trailing behind Father or one of his classmates and trying not to look completely lost. _What else is left? Maybe after this I can have a nap…_

This time, Byleth hears the footsteps before whoever it is can sneak up on him—he whirls around, one hand on the frying pan and the other on the hilt of his sword, and looks straight into surprised blue eyes.

“Oh,” Linhardt says, after a long while, “Byleth.”

“Linhardt,” Byleth returns, feeling rather numb. _Finally,_ he thinks, _he didn’t catch me by surprise._ “You’re on cooking duty?”

“Unfortunately.” Linhardt casts a glance over at the pan and flops down on a nearby chair. “But I am utterly atrocious at cooking, if you must know. I do work well as a taste tester, though. Should I leave this all up to you?”

His voice is lighter than it had been when Byleth had visited him at his room—if you could call that _visiting,_ anyway—but more guarded than when he speaks during class and around the rest of the Black Eagles. His eyes are shuttered, too, and despite Byleth’s halfhearted attempt to make eye contact with him, Linhardt keeps his gaze fixed on his lap, looking too tense to fall asleep as he always does.

“Well,” Byleth eventually says, feeling a twinge of— _something_ in his chest when Linhardt still doesn’t look up, “that’s fine.”

Byleth doesn’t have attention to spare once he actually starts cooking, because every little step in the recipe takes up his entire concentration—once or twice he thinks he hears the sound of shuffling footsteps behind him, but then Sothis, hovering above the stove, will wave a hand or tell him she’s smelling smoke and he’ll have no choice but to turn back to the food. “Really,” she scoffs, “how have you lived this long with such amateur cooking skills? If I were you, I would’ve made a feast by now.”

 _I never really had to learn cooking,_ Byleth muses. His memories are muddled, but he does remember eating quite a number of things with only minimal preparation. _Or I just made a fire and burned whatever was there._

Sothis shakes her head indignantly. “You are unbelievable! One day you are going to stuff raw meat down your throat like the unthinking fool you are, and then we’ll _both_ choke to death.”

 _Meat…_ Byleth sighs wistfully. The dining hall had served steak once, to celebrate something he can’t even remember anymore, and that had been one of the most fulfilling, enlightening nights of his life. _Sounds good._

“Hopeless. Utterly hopeless.”

Byleth’s about to reply when he hears something suspiciously familiar tinkle behind him—he murmurs for Sothis to keep an eye on the dish as he turns around. Linhardt, as he had half-expected, is poking at the tea set he had stashed behind the microwave, his expression befuddled. “That’s mine,” Byleth tells him.

“What a surprise,” Linhardt says. “And why did you bring such a delicate-looking tea set to the kitchens? Behind the _microwave,_ no less. You’re asking for trouble here.”

“Oh. Well.” Byleth tries not to scratch his cheek, although his cheek isn’t all that itchy. Is it a nervous habit? He’s never developed a nervous habit before. “Ferdinand gave it to me earlier, but I didn’t have time to drop it off in my room. So.”

“Hmm.” Linhardt lifts the tea set up and sets it atop one of the emptier counters, right in the middle and far from the precarious edges. “I can’t imagine you drinking tea from something like this. No offense, of course.”

“What do you mean?”

Linhardt looks up at him at last, and the faint upward curve of his lips has Byleth blinking at him in confusion. “I don’t know. You just seem more like a coffee person, I suppose.”

“Coffee…” Byleth mulls it over. He had tried Father’s once, and hadn’t really liked nor disliked the taste, but it had kept him awake all through the night and left him groggy and half-asleep for the rest of the next day. Not something he particularly wants to repeat. On the other hand, tea… well, it smells nice. “If you want,” he slowly says, gaze sliding away from Linhardt’s eyes, “we can—”

“Byleth!” Sothis shrieks, and Byleth nearly drops the frying pan. “The fish, you complete dunderhead, it’s up in flames!”

The fire alarm chooses that exact moment to start going off. Linhardt winces at the loud sound; Byleth looks back at the fish on the pan, and feels his blood run cold at how black it’s gotten. Fish should _not_ be that black—at least for this dish, anyway. _Um, uh, oh no. Oh no. This is a problem._

“You’re right it’s a problem!” Sothis looks seconds away from pulling at her hair in frustration. “The stove, turn off the stove!”

Byleth does so, nearly burning himself as he twists the knob—the hissing flames beneath the pan sputter and die, but there’s no point trying to save the smoking fish, charred as it is. Sothis groans and buries her face in her hands. Byleth just stares at the pan. It feels a little unreal, having failed the one thing he thought he was good at.

“You should probably start over,” Linhardt says—Byleth jerks away, and only his reflexes keep him from dropping the pan for the third time in the past few minutes. Linhardt had somehow come near enough to peer over his shoulder, something Byleth unfortunately remembers he is tall enough to do, and he had been _far_ too close for comfort. “What?” Linhardt asks, raising an eyebrow. “Did I surprise you?”

“Don’t come too close,” Byleth blurts out. His words are louder than he had meant them to be, and he sees Linhardt’s eyes widen in obvious surprise before he hastily adds, “I mean—I don’t like it in general. When others are too close.” _Or when others sneak up on me._

“Ah,” Linhardt says, at length, “I see. I apologize.”

Byleth looks away. “Sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Had that been fear driving his thoughts and words for a moment? He doesn’t remember feeling anything like it before. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t remember feeling _anything_ before, period, only twinges of what could be called emotions if he’s being generous. Is hunger an emotion? He doesn’t know.

But he looks back at Linhardt, his normally inscrutable expression cracked to show uncertainty, and Byleth decides _emotions_ are an absolute pain and completely unnecessary.

He tosses the unfortunate fish into the rubbish and finds another one, intent on actually making something edible this time. Linhardt bustles around behind him, opening every cabinet and fiddling with every pot or pan, but doesn’t offer to help until he finally, for _once,_ visibly stands a few ways away from Byleth and says, “If you need a fire…”

“Hm?” Byleth nudges at the stove knob as gently as he can, but the flames roar several degrees hotter than he wants them to anyway. He thought he had accidentally turned the stove on too hot earlier, which had led to the fish currently sitting in the trash bin and still filling the room with the stink of smoke. At least the fire alarm had stopped wailing overhead. But the stove is decidedly broken—the flames it produced were either mildly warm or the surface of the sun, no in between.

Linhardt clears his throat and takes a step closer. “If you need a steady fire, I can help.”

He flicks his wrist, concentration furrowing his brow, and a familiar tongue of flame whispers into existence. Byleth can’t think of anything to say or do aside from turn the stove off and step back to let Linhardt light the burner up—the fire flickers and dances beneath the pan, just the right setting for the dish.

They’re close. Byleth can see the back of Linhardt’s head as he bends a little to fiddle with the fire, his long fingers brushing over the magical flames but never burning. _His hair looks soft,_ Byleth notes. _It would probably feel nice to run a hand through it._

Then Linhardt straightens, and the thoughts fade into obscurity. “There.”

“Thank you.” Byleth looks down at the fish. This is definitely the best way to light up a temperamental stove—he can feel the heat when he brings his hand closer to the fire, and it feels as hot as the campfires he used to burn fish on with Father and the mercenaries. He looks back at Linhardt, feeling something tug at his cheeks as he speaks. “You did it.”

Linhardt blinks. “What?”

“Your reason magic. It didn’t go wrong.”

“Oh.” Linhardt turns away, and for a moment Byleth wonders if he’d done something wrong, bringing that conversation up—maybe Linhardt had wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened at all? “Yes. I only get it right off the battlefield.”

“That’s not such a bad thing, is it?” Byleth slowly asks. He makes sure to pay attention to both Linhardt and the fish this time—he really doesn’t think the monastery chefs would take the fire alarm blaring a second time very nicely. Linhardt doesn’t immediately respond, looking at him in obvious confusion. “I mean, what you just did right now was helpful.”

“Helpful?” Linhardt repeats, sounding both amused and skeptical. “I can hardly call lighting up a stove very helpful.”

“It helped me.”

Linhardt’s silent again, and Byleth carefully glances over at him when he’s sure the fish isn’t in danger—he’s staring at his hands, and Byleth realizes this is one of the few times he’s paid attention to those hands when they’re not shaking or covered in blood. They’re nice, delicate and unmarred with battle scars—then Linhardt looks back at him again, and the smile he gives Byleth is somehow lighter and softer than Byleth remembers it being. “I suppose that’s what matters, isn’t it.”

That strange tugging sensation again—and Byleth realizes, belatedly, it’s his own smile.

Linhardt does make a good taste tester, although he speaks so elaborately about the taste of the fish that his words fly straight over Byleth’s head, and he finishes his three-minute-long report with “In conclusion, it’s rather good, but I prefer sweets,” making his whole spiel rather pointless. They hand the dishes over to the chefs, who commend them and in no uncertain terms say they are never to activate the fire alarm again, and Byleth very nearly walks straight back to his room until Linhardt calls him back to the kitchen.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Byleth blinks. And remembers. “Ah. Right. Thank you.” He lifts the tea set off the counter, checking it for—injuries isn’t quite the right word, but it’s the only word he _can_ think of right now—when he sees Linhardt looking curiously at him. “What is it?”

“What tea do you like, Byleth?” Linhardt asks, falling easily into step beside him.

“Anything, really.”

“Anything?”

“They all taste the same to me. But they smell nice,” Byleth adds, after a considering pause. He vaguely wonders where they’re going; will Linhardt follow him to the dorms? Maybe they both have a nap on their afternoon schedule. “It’s calming. Their scents.”

Linhardt hums in confirmation, but Byleth can’t help but wonder if he’s disappointed—the silence that follows feels like it should be filled up with more than just late afternoon birdsong. _What am I supposed to do?_

“Weren’t you going to ask him something before you set the fish on fire?” Sothis slyly comments, floating along on Byleth’s other side.

 _Oh._ Right. “If you want,” Byleth says, a bit too fast as he turns to face Linhardt, “we can have tea together.”

A pause. Linhardt looks at him in what looks almost like surprise, but his expression softens into obvious satisfaction. He’s either getting easier to read, or Byleth’s getting better at reading him. Byleth hopes it’s the latter. “Sure. Although you absolutely must wash that tea set first. Who knows how many ants had crawled all over it while the fish was burning.”

Both their rooms are far too messy to have tea in—Linhardt admits that only one person at a time can step foot in his dorm because of how 80 percent of the floor space has been taken up by books, and Byleth doesn’t even want Linhardt to see the state of his own room. Up until Byleth had hurriedly ducked inside to rinse the teacups in his bathroom sink while hoping Linhardt hadn’t caught a glance at all the unwashed laundry or the unmade bed, embarrassment had been a relatively foreign concept. He honestly wishes it had stayed that way.

They eventually decide on a nice spot under a tree, the sunlight filtering through the leaves in thin golden shafts, leaving the grass beneath them a dappled white. “There’s a word for this, in the ancient Fódlan language,” Linhardt tells him, when he flops down on the grass and stretches like a cat. “ _Komorebi._ The scattered light that filters through when sunlight shines through trees. It’s nice, isn’t it? I fall asleep best under light like this.”

“You’re not going to sleep now, are you?” Byleth cautiously asks. He would really rather not have Linhardt dozing off in the middle of pouring tea.

Linhardt sits up, smiling so freely that it’s almost uncharacteristic. “No, no. But if your tea is bad, then maybe.”

“Bad…?” Byleth winces. His unfortunate habit of hoarding just about anything others gave him had led to a pile of tea blends in his room, and as he sifts through them he realizes he has no idea what _good_ tea even is. It probably depends on the person’s taste, doesn’t it? “What tea do you like?”

Linhardt tilts his head a little. “Can you guess?”

 _No,_ Byleth almost says, until he sees the now-familiar curve of the ends of Linhardt’s lips. “Ooh, he’s teasing you, the brat,” Sothis actually coos, sitting next to Linhardt to poke his cheek, though her finger just phases through him. “I’m certain you can figure it out, though, even if you are absolutely hopeless at cooking. You know, someone’s favorite tea is something you can sniff out once you’re skilled enough like me.”

Byleth feels his brow scrunch up. _Sniff out?_ It doesn’t seem like a very sound method, but Sothis is giving him a look that tells him he should _know_ this, so Byleth leans in closer towards Linhardt, even when his skin tingles with the nearness—Linhardt backs away a little at first, looking confused, until Byleth says “No, stay still,” and the confusion morphs into surprise.

“I thought you prefer…” Linhardt makes a vague gesture with his hand. “A respectable distance.”

“Just hold on.”

 _His hands._ Byleth surreptitiously slips one of his gloves on, then lifts Linhardt’s hand up closer to his face—he hears Linhardt’s inhale turn sharp, but ignores it in favor of breathing in the faint scents. _Fire. Books. Ink._ But below those is something else, the whiff he catches every time Linhardt comes just a bit too close, like right now. _Earth… herbs… a hint of citrus._

Byleth leans back, letting Linhardt’s hand drop limply onto his lap. “Angelica.”

Silence—for a while there’s only the birdsong again, and the rustling of leaves above them, rays of sunlight shifting and dancing with the wind. Then Linhardt swallows, his eyes still wide, before managing a nod as he turns away from Byleth, bringing his hand up to his chest. “You smelled it?”

“I’m right?”

“Yes, yes, you’re right. My mother used to grow angelica herbs in our garden.”

 _Used to?_ Byleth wants to ask, but decides against it, quietly reveling in his victory instead. “I told you. I prefer their smell.” He plucks two teabags of angelica out of his pile, stuffing the rest into the container that had come with the tea set, and prepares them while Linhardt watches mutely across him. “And you told me to guess, after all.”

Linhardt _huffs,_ the indignant action almost comical on his aristocratic features. “I wasn’t expecting you to sniff it out like a bloodhound. Was it part of your mercenary training?”

“Just the experience.” Byleth’s fairly sure he only really cares about the smell of tea, because blood overpowers just about everything else as a mercenary—it was the stench that hovered above their every camp and settlement like smog, mixed with the rot of corpses and, on occasion, burnt meat. He must smell like it still, because he’s been surrounded by it all his life that he thinks it must be tangible by this point, wrapping around him like his coat, clinging to him like his shadow.

“You know,” Byleth says, looking down at the hot water slowly turning a light auburn, “it’s something you just pick up, after a while.”

The tea is good, something Byleth bases entirely off how Linhardt’s face lights up at the first sip, and they don’t talk much—Linhardt takes to lying down on the grass, staring up at the leaves above them, and Byleth listens to the surrounding sounds. He’s fairly sure they’re _supposed_ to be having a conversation, but the quiet feels nice. He doesn’t feel pressured to say something, nor does Linhardt really try to say much apart from a throwaway comment or two about whatever catches his attention.

It’s nice, sitting down and being quiet. There had never been much opportunity as a mercenary, and only now is Byleth realizing just how _calming_ it feels.

“Have you learned anything else? In magic,” Linhardt asks, absently swirling his tea.

“I haven’t found the time to study,” Byleth lies. He’s had plenty of time in between (and during) classes, but that one Heal spell from what feels like ages ago had left him dizzy and lightheaded for the entire next day, and he’d rather not experience it again unless absolutely necessary. It had felt odd, too, being connected to someone else—connected to _Linhardt_ —while he had been healing him, even if only for a moment. Almost like an invasion of privacy, though Byleth knows that makes no sense.

Linhardt hums. “Your Heal spell that day was better than I expected, though.”

“Was it?”

“You’ve had no formal training in magic before, have you?” he asks, and Byleth nods. “I thought so. Magic is… a study. It’s not something you can understand just by swinging some boorish weapons around a hundred times everyday. It’s deeper than that.” Linhardt pauses, staring thoughtfully into space as he sips his tea. “I’m not quite sure how to explain it. But for many people, it’s hard to cast magic proficiently if one does not have the innate talent for it in the first place.”

Byleth feels himself brighten a little. “So I have the innate talent for it?”

Linhardt huffs a soft laugh, the happiest sound Byleth’s heard leave him before. “I _suppose._ But you’re still very much at the basics. It’s a study, but there’s also plenty of practice involved.”

“Hmm.” Byleth leans back, looking up at the flashing leaves. Faint pink and orange tinges have begun to color the sky, and the sun is less bright than it had been earlier. Had the time passed that quickly? “I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you always… feel something, when you heal others? Or cast magic on them, in general?”

Linhardt frowns. “You’ll have to be more specific than _something._ ”

“Like…” Byleth hesitates. Linhardt usually catches onto things in a matter of seconds, even those left unsaid. “Like the person’s pain. Or emotions.”

There’s no shock or confusion on Linhardt’s expression for a moment, only careful contemplation, then a nod. “Very rarely,” he finally allows. “It usually only happens when my Crest manifests, and not all the time. It’s said to be a sign of a natural healer.”

“A natural healer?” Byleth repeats. He still remembers how it had felt, how his side had stung almost as bad as if an arrow had burrowed deep in him as well, then the sudden surge of emotions he knew he hadn’t been feeling. _Pain, concern, surprise. Awe._

“Mm, it shows your capability for empathy, which is important for healers. It’s helpful for identifying where your patient is hurting most as well, allowing you to direct your magic where it’s most needed. And there are theories that it’s a sign from Saint Cethleann or the Goddess Herself, a message letting you know they want that patient alive, or that you’ve been chosen by them to wield old magic that died with them centuries ago—”

Linhardt pauses again, his nose scrunched up in concentration but his eyes alight with interest. “Hmm. Though I’ve never found myself being able to cast ancient spells before, so I doubt the validity of that one. In any case, it’s a phenomenon many healers never experience throughout their lives. It can also be quite the nuisance, if you feel a patient’s pain every time you heal someone. I can only imagine both the physical and mental stress that would leave on a person.”

“Ah,” Byleth manages, after taking several long seconds to process all that, “I see.”

Linhardt’s expression closes off, vaguely familiar in a way Byleth has seen only once, a few months ago in a dim library. “Sorry,” he offers halfheartedly. “I know you must not have understood much of that. In short, it’s not a big help unless you’re aiming to be a professional healer, and I doubt that, you being a mercenary and all.”

“No, I understood,” Byleth hurries to say, feeling the tightness in his chest unclench when Linhardt looks back at him, looking so tentatively hopeful it seems almost vulnerable. “I just… take a while, before I can figure it out. But I do. I understood you last time, didn’t I?”

When Linhardt smiles, he tilts his head to the side just so, and the sunset light turns the cobalt of his eyes a glittering cerulean. “Right. I remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re: kitchen i forgot fe3h is in some medieval fantasy setting and accidentally included the microwave and etc. because i was basing the layout off my own kitchen to make it easier to imagine LMFAO... anyway if these bitches can have magic then they can have microwaves  
> komorebi is also an actual jpn word that means exactly what linhardt said it does  
> and at byleth being a natural healer, that's his budding talent in faith!! my boy!!
> 
> next: byleth and linhardt will achieve support level C


	5. verdant rain moon (1) — “perhaps you are the exception?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is technically grave-robbing, isn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[heart beat a step, find it hard to catch my breath](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzuKa29kEpY) _
> 
> this is still very much filler chapter, forgive me

It feels like lightning racing up his arm, fire crackling in his ribcage, thunder striking down from the heavens—

He swings the sword out of pure reflex, and almost stumbles back from the force—the mage’s magic fizzles into nothing under the sword’s blade, now glowing red, almost _pulsing_ with power Byleth’s never felt before. It hums, vibrates, seems to _breathe_ in time with his own inhales and exhales. For a moment he forgets where he is, what he’s doing, who the mage in front of him is—for a moment he can only think of the sword in his hand, gleaming gold and warm in his grip.

Then the world restarts around him, and Byleth blinks—the mage’s hands are flying to the front of his chest, a fizzling barrier of magic forming around him. _No time,_ something whispers, _strike now,_ and Byleth doesn’t question it, simply runs straight ahead and swings the sword down against the barrier. A second, two—then cracks spiderweb across the surface before the wall shatters into glittering shards, and Byleth moves without thinking, the sword slashing down against the mage’s unprotected chest.

The mage groans, once, and slumps lifelessly beneath the coffin. His blood drips down the ridges of the floor.

“Nice sword,” Father slowly says, very carefully lifting said sword in his hands. “This is technically grave-robbing, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you saw someone’s bones in that coffin?”

“It’s not robbing if the Archbishop let me keep it,” Byleth argues. “And no. It was just the sword.”

 _The Sword of the Creator,_ the Archbishop had called it. After she had let him keep it, for whatever reason he prefers to stay unaware of, he’d lingered outside the closed doors of the audience chamber a few minutes longer than necessary, pretending to look for something he’d dropped, and had heard an extremely heated voice that could only have belonged to Seteth. Byleth had stayed perfectly still, straining his ears to the best of their abilities, but the words had been too muffled to properly understand.

A shame, because this sword—this _Heroes’ Relic_ —seems like something Byleth deserves a little more information on, if he’s going to be wielding it.

“Professor Hanneman told me I had the Crest of Flames,” Byleth adds, when Father just keeps staring down at the sword, his expression unreadable. “And that its last recorded holder was the King of Liberation.” He doesn’t mention having partially known about most of this already, given Linhardt’s explanation some months ago in the library—it’s unnecessary, for one, and oddly enough he wants to keep that conversation something of a secret, even if it’s in no way very important.

“The Crest of Flames,” Father mumbles, turning the sword over, running a hand over the empty space on the hilt where it looks like something should fit inside. Sothis had mentioned it, about it being different from Catherine’s Thunderbrand, and Byleth can agree, although perhaps not for the same reasons. “Huh. Hm. Interesting.”

They test it out a little more, the veil of mystery over the whole thing fading to make room for the same childish curiosity both he and Father have every time they find an unusual weapon; Father laughs when Byleth swings the sword and it separates into its segments, and for a moment Byleth can pretend they’re out on the field like they used to, standing around a campfire and surrounded by the rest of the mercenaries, cheering and clapping and calling out for their own turn.

But Byleth only has to look at the stone floor, the old walls, to remind himself they’re still far away from going back to that. If they will go back to that, even.

“By the way,” Father says, once Byleth’s sheathed the sword, “I think it’s about time we… visit your mother.”

Byleth pauses. He doesn’t freeze—he makes it a habit to avoid the uncomfortable sensation of his limbs locking in place and the cold chill washing over his bones. It’s one of the worst things to happen to any mercenary who finds themselves in battle more often than they get to eat. But the words make him pause, and it feels like everything slows down to accommodate him, the winds stilling and the bustle of the students and staff fading into white noise.

“Mother?” Byleth repeats, lowly. He tries to keep the trace of disbelief out of his voice. He fails.

Father turns away a bit, picking at the cuff of his sleeve. “Come on.”

The graveyard isn’t far from where they were, and Byleth tries to memorize the route. Father stops in front of a grave at the far left, the tombstone looking a little dustier than the others. Father swallows. “She’s buried here. I… know you never knew her. She died when you were born, after all. But—”

“Tell me about her,” Byleth says, almost too fast. He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken that quickly before.

Father looks surprised for a moment, then nods. “She was… perfect, you know. Kind and gentle, but sometimes she’d beat me up for doing something stupid. Once hit me over the head with a frying pan, scared me so much I never cooked again.” He laughs, but the sound wobbles dangerously at the end. “She was a great cook, too. Made me meals all the time. Tried to teach me, but you know how hopeless I am. How hopeless we both are.”

Byleth nods. Smiles. Beside him, Sothis crouches on the ground in front of Mother’s grave, her expression softening at the edges.

“When she got pregnant with you, she used to say she’d make sure to teach you how to cook from birth. So that even if you inherited my genes, she could still beat them out of you.” Father smiles, then kneels down, barely a hair’s breadth away from Sothis, and brings out a handful of flowers he had tucked away in his coat. “And… she loved flowers. The rare and exotic ones. When I was still a Knight, I used to go further out during missions just to find the real crazy-looking ones to bring them back to her. Got poisoned more than once, I gotta admit. But it was worth it, to see her smile, and she always patched me back up.”

Father bends down to lay the flowers atop her grave, his hands gentler than Byleth can remember. They’re definitely unusual-looking and not anything Byleth’s ever seen before, and for some reason that’s what has his chest twisting in pain. “Do I…”

His throat closes up. _Why? Why does it feel like this? Why do I feel so much?_

Father looks up. The corners of his eyes are blotched red. “What?”

“Do I… look like her?”

Silence—Father exhales as he stands up, a soft laugh leaving him as he draws Byleth into a rare, one-armed hug. “Yeah, you do,” he mumbles. “Down to the eyes, kid. You really do.”

Byleth raises his arms and they hover uncertainly in empty air for a moment, trembling and unsure, until he wraps them around Father’s back.

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend there’s someone else with them, her arm on his other side.

“Um… Byleth?”

Byleth tears his gaze away from the dishes laid out on the counter, and only then does the rest of the world seem to register in his senses again—when he turns around, Dorothea and Petra are there, looking at him curiously. “Sorry. Excuse me.”

“Are you having trouble deciding on lunch?” Dorothea asks, obviously amused. She and Petra are both holding a plate of vegetable stir-fry, and Byleth gives it an assessing look. He’s impartial to most everything aside from his obvious bias for fish, but he wonders if that dish is the one to go. It’s nutritious, after all, but would it be _good?_

Dorothea clears her throat. “Byleth, what do you keep spacing out for?”

“Sorry,” Byleth repeats, a little meeker this time. “Um, do you… know what food Linhardt likes?”

Silence—as silent as it can get in the dining hall during lunch time, anyway, with dozens of teenagers running around and chattering with friends. Petra, who had been eyeing a plate of sautéed jerky, snaps her attention back to Byleth with obvious surprise on her face; Dorothea blinks slowly, once, then twice, but says nothing even after several long awkward seconds have passed.

“Sweets,” Petra finally offers. “I have seen him eat the sweeter dishes served here, whenever he is awake enough to eat, anyway.”

“Right! That’s right!” Dorothea chokes out, apparently having recovered from whatever had taken over her. She laughs nervously for a second, then points at a row of sweet buns, warm and clearly fresh from the oven. “There—those are his favorite snacks, I think. He can burn through ten of those in the same number of minutes.”

 _Sweets?_ Byleth had heard him mention it before, but until now he can’t quite see him as having a sweet tooth, especially considering how little energy he seems to have all the time. Maybe the sugar goes to his brain instead. “Thank you.”

“Are you visiting him again?” Dorothea asks, just the slightest bit of emphasis on the word _visiting._ She sidles up to him as Byleth gets a plate and starts placing as many sweet buns as possible. Petra follows, looking rather reluctant. “He didn’t go to class today, did he? Is he alright?”

Byleth shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out, too.”

“Aww! That’s sweet of you. You two have been—” She pauses for a second, but it’s so quick that Byleth wonders if he’d just imagined it. “Spending quite some time with each other recently, haven’t you?”

Petra nods. “I have noticed that as well. I suppose you two seem like the type to get along…”

“See? I even saw you two having tea together the other day.” Dorothea giggles and shoots Petra a look that has Petra hiding her own smile behind a hand.

Byleth frowns. He has no idea what they’re talking about—do he and Linhardt _really_ spend that much time together? He supposes he does talk to Linhardt more than he does other people in their House, but he talks with Dorothea plenty (for his standards, at least), and he and Petra have done a lot of sword training together too, even if the training sessions do take place at five in the morning. “I don’t know,” Byleth slowly repeats, his thoughts trailing off. He supposes the real question is if he _likes_ spending time with Linhardt, and the answer to that is… “I just like it, I guess. Being with him.”

Dorothea _coos._ Petra smiles, and there’s nothing weird about that, at the very least. “That is good to know! Some of us had been worrying you would be having a hard time making friends here, when most of us have already known each other through past acquaintances.”

Byleth stares at them. “You were worried?”

“Oh, of course.” Dorothea pats his arm, her teasing expression fading into genuine fondness. “I mean, when you first enrolled, you were so quiet and intimidating and you didn’t look like you wanted to be here at all! Now you’re…” She looks thoughtful for a bit. “Well, you’re certainly still quiet. But not so intimidating, now that we know you better.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down at the plate of sweet buns. He’s scooped up at least a good dozen of them, balanced precariously on top of the other. “I… didn’t know.”

Dorothea and Petra are having lunch together with Edelgard, who greets Byleth with a smile that twists into a confused frown once her eyes land on the mountain of sweet buns on his plate. When Byleth leaves the dining hall to begin the long trek back to the dorms, he has to dodge the monastery dogs and cats bounding around and trying to knock the plate out of his hands, which is both absolutely torturous and unexpectedly good agility training.

Locating Linhardt’s dorm isn’t so hard now, even if the doors still all look the same. Byleth knocks twice, not too loud to be disruptive but just audible enough that it should get Linhardt’s attention, although that depends entirely on whether or not he’s awake. There’s no response for several seconds, and Byleth sighs, resigning himself to a long day of sitting out here, knocking periodically and waiting for Linhardt to answer.

When Linhardt hadn’t shown up for their first class, Byleth had assumed he had slept in, as usually happened. But then he hadn’t attended the rest of their morning lectures _and_ the seminar Professor Manuela had placed incredible emphasis on, so Father had asked him to check up on him. “Since you two seem to get along so well,” he’d said. “If you bring him food, that’d be good too.”

 _Does_ Byleth get along that well with Linhardt? He hadn’t really noticed, until everyone unanimously decided to start pointing that out today. Petra had mentioned them being _friends,_ too—is that what they are? Aren’t there qualifications for that?

Then again, he hasn’t really had many friends to compare the experience to. If he’s had any friends at all.

He has to knock two more times, with five-minute intervals between them, before Byleth finally hears the door unlock and Linhardt call, “Come in,” his voice thick with sleep.

 _Couldn’t he have just opened the door himself?_ Byleth wonders, pushing the door open with his foot, eager to get the sweet buns out of his hands and onto a solid surface. He’s just not quite expecting to nearly trip on a pile of books the very moment he steps inside.

Linhardt had, Byleth now sees, _not_ been exaggerating when he had called his room a mess. In fact, he had probably been understating it, because Byleth can barely find space on the floor to step on with all the books, notes, and papers scattered around him—he has to bend down and nudge them out of the way to make himself a path to the desk, where Linhardt has apparently fallen asleep by, his head propped up atop his arms folded on the table. “Byleth?” Linhardt mumbles. Then his eyes fly all the way open. “ _Sweet buns?_ ”

Byleth sets the plate down, sweeping stray papers to the side. “Father was worried.”

“Hmm? How come?”

“Because you didn’t go to class all morning?” Byleth points out, more of a question than a statement.

Linhardt blinks. “All morning?” He waves a hand, and a sudden gust of wind blows the curtains covering the only window in the room to the side, ruffling Byleth’s hair a little as well—the harsh glare of the afternoon sun has him groaning and dropping his head back on the desk. “I… hadn’t realized. I got more caught up with my studies than I thought I would.”

A quick glance at the notes on his desk and the books on the floor tell Byleth all he needs to know about what he’s studying this time. “The Crest of Flames?”

Like Byleth had been half-expecting, Linhardt’s entire face lights up, the change so sudden it’s almost unnerving. “Yes. _Your_ Crest, of course. Tell me, did Professor Hanneman confirm our theory for us? Of course he must have, because there’s simply no other Crest in the world that looks like the Crest of Flames _and_ lets you wield the Sword of the Creator even without a Crest Stone. You did notice its absence, didn’t you? I wonder where they could have stored it. It can’t be in the Holy Mausoleum as well. That’d be _too_ foolish, even for the Church.”

“That’s a little blasphemous,” Byleth manages to say in between rapid-fire sentences.

Instead of looking properly chastised, Linhardt just seems more amused and animated than ever. He nabs one of the sweet buns off the plate and bites into it, using his other hand to sift through the papers on his desk. After swallowing, he hands a number of them over to Byleth, who has no choice but to slowly take them and do his best to read Linhardt’s impossible handwriting. “The Holy Mausoleum was very interesting, incidentally,” Linhardt cheerfully remarks. “When that terrible ordeal was finished, I had quite some fun examining its structure and comparing my new findings to my old notes.”

“I… see.”

Linhardt tilts his head thoughtfully, staring into space for a moment, and Byleth realizes the sweet bun that had been in his hand a second ago is gone. Had he finished it that quickly? Dorothea hadn’t been kidding, then. “That’s right. Byleth, could I see the sword, please? For just a moment, and purely for research purposes.”

Byleth instinctively steps back, thankfully not tripping over any misplaced books and falling flat on his behind. “Um…”

Linhardt—there’s no other word for what he does—honest to goodness _pouts._ He leans forward, hands under his chin, and _pouts._ “Oh, come on, do you really think I’m going to swing it around like an idiot in here? I’m not going to slice my room into pieces. And besides, I’m awful with a sword. You can trust me, Byleth.”

 _Trust_ —Byleth swallows. He had let Father hold it, so surely it would be fine to let Linhardt do the same, right? Disregarding the fact that Father is a seasoned mercenary and an esteemed Knight of Seiros while Linhardt is a teenage student, Byleth can hardly even imagine Linhardt swinging a sword around with any degree of proficiency. _And it couldn’t hurt. Could it?_ Byleth trusts him, after all. _Wait, I do?_

“Thank you,” Linhardt practically _sings,_ his voice even higher and more lilting than it already is, and before Byleth realizes it the Sword of the Creator is already cradled in Linhardt’s delicate hands. He has to restrain himself from leaping over and grabbing the sword back, half-expecting it to start glowing and pulsing again—but off the battlefield, it’s relatively tame. Which makes sense. It’s not as if the Heroes’ Relics are _alive,_ after all.

Linhardt hums as he examines the sword—turning it over, holding it up to the lamp light, asking Byleth to separate it into its segments, stroking the circular space where he had mentioned a Crest Stone should be. “Did you know,” he says, his entire person alight with excitement, “in other languages, its name sounds much more powerful? Some call it _the Sword of the Heavenly Emperor,_ or _the Sword of the Supreme Deity._ Just ‘Creator’ seems a little dull when compared to those, don’t you think?”

Byleth dutifully nods. He’s getting a little dizzy just watching Linhardt, and he has to force himself to stay in place when Linhardt runs his fingers down the length of the hilt. “Be careful,” he says, taking a cautious step forward. Linhardt, still seated casually on his chair, looks up at him beneath his lashes, the perfect picture of innocence. “I don’t need you cutting yourself on that.”

Linhardt makes a disgusted noise. “I’m more careful than you think, thank you.”

Byleth just sighs, then remembers what else he had gone here for. “I also brought you notes on the lectures you missed, by the way.” From his coat pocket he pulls out a sheaf of papers, their corners just a little bit creased. “Here. There are some on Professor Manuela’s seminar today, too.”

Linhardt reaches out to take the papers, leafing through them and humming in acknowledgement. “Thank you,” he says. He looks almost surprised, like he hadn’t been expecting this. “You really went all the way to my room just for this? And some sweet buns?”

Byleth shrugs. “Father was worried,” he repeats. Although it occurs to him now that he could have easily told Father that Caspar, being Linhardt’s best friend, would be far more suited to this task than he, but Byleth hadn’t argued. Maybe that means something. Maybe not. “And so was I,” Byleth hesitantly tacks on.

“I appreciate it,” Linhardt says, a smile worming its way back on his face. “Though you shouldn’t be. These—” He waves the papers in the air—“are all on faith magic. I didn’t _want_ to skip all the morning lectures, exactly, but just in case I did oversleep, I at least knew it wouldn’t be a major loss for me.”

Byleth frowns. “Attendance is still important.”

“It’s hardly important enough to stop me from graduating, is it?”

Byleth genuinely doesn’t know the answer to that, so he switches tactics and impulsively asks, “If you know everything already, then could you help me? It’s…” He hesitates for a moment, not quite liking how the next words taste on his tongue. This is probably what it feels like to be _embarrassed,_ huh. “It’s not easy,” he finally mumbles.

Even if he’s a so-called _natural healer_ in the works, magic doesn’t come easily to him at all. During Professor Manuela’s seminar, she had asked them to partner up with each other and practice basic Heal and Nosferatu spells, but while his partner Mercedes from the Blue Lions had been praised for her evident mastery, Byleth hadn’t even been able to cast Heal, even when he’s _sure_ he’d been able to do so with Linhardt, during that hellish battle. Maybe it had been the heat of the moment? Or because he’d been in the presence of Linhardt, who bears a minor Crest of Cethleann? Or had it just been the goddess, taking mercy on his pain-addled desperation?

Either way, Professor Manuela had looked disappointed, and Byleth would be lying if he said he didn’t want to find out more about his supposed affinity for faith magic, which had only shown itself once, and even then it may have just been his imagination.

Linhardt, for his part, doesn’t seem to care about any of that—all he does is tilt his head a little, munching on what must be his fourth sweet bun by now. “Alright,” he agrees. “These are basic lessons, after all. It shouldn’t take you too long to figure out. But I am simply _awful_ at teaching,” he sighs, drawing the words out, “so I must ask for a favor in return. Something quite small, really.”

Byleth has a terrible feeling about this quite small favor. “What is it?”

Linhardt’s face lights up again. “Aren’t you curious, how you bear the Crest of Flames when I find it highly unlikely you are actually related to Nemesis? I’ve heard stories of Crests being forcefully implanted in some people, although those stories have never ended well. Perhaps you are the exception?”

He finishes off another sweet bun in the time it takes to stand up, skillfully stepping around the obstacle course of books on his floor and coming closer to Byleth, the smile on his face reminiscent of that day in the library. “So, Byleth. In exchange for some tutoring, won’t you let me investigate that Crest of yours a little? It won’t hurt a bit, I swear. I’m sure I could find out all sorts of things about your Crest…” Linhardt pauses, smiles, steps closer again. “And you.”

By this point, he’s near enough that their height difference, though small, is noticeable again, and Byleth is itching to move away, to back off, because being this close to someone else makes him lightheaded, makes him want to claw his way out of the room, makes him want to _flee_ like a cornered animal. He’s seen how prey run from predators, has been the predator himself, and to be that desperate, to be that _scared_ —

But he doesn’t move. He _can’t._ Byleth stares at the upward curl of Linhardt’s lips, the flyaway, sleep-mussed strands of green hair framing his cheeks, the deep blue of his eyes, wide open and wide awake, and he can’t _move._

“Alright,” Byleth finally manages. His voice is a lot rougher than he remembers it being. “As long as we get tutoring done first, please.”

Behind him, he can vaguely hear Sothis slapping her palms over her face and groaning.

It’s a long afternoon. Linhardt makes him review theory first, even when Byleth’s fairly sure he has the entire introductory chapter of their magic textbook imprinted in his brain, then shows him how he casts Heal. “You’ve done it before, so it shouldn’t be so hard,” Linhardt tells him. “The proper form is hands just above the wound, dominant hand a little nearer, arms bent like this… it’s good if your head is bowed, too, to show deference to the goddess. Though I don’t do that often,” he adds.

Byleth can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He probably isn’t.

“As far as I’ve learned, form only matters in the beginning, when magic might not come as easily to you as it does for more experienced mages,” Linhardt continues. “In a while, it either becomes muscle memory or completely unnecessary. Usually the latter. On the battlefield,” he sighs, “you rarely have time to think about your _form_ when your patient is bleeding everywhere.”

Linhardt asks if Byleth’s suffered a recent injury, looking paler than usual when he does so, so Byleth pulls up the sleeve of his uniform and points at a small bruise he’d gotten while training with Edelgard the other day. Linhardt sighs in obvious relief, then lets his hands hover above the bruise, the action comfortingly familiar, though his stiff, perfect posture is almost comical. “Like this,” he says, and then—the warmth, again.

For a moment, Byleth forgets to focus on learning, and instead relaxes into the sensation of faith magic; when he’s not in serious, mind-numbing pain, it actually feels nice, like drinking in the fragrance of tea, or lying under scattered sunshine under the canopy of leaves, or reading books in the dim glow of library candlelight.

It feels, he realizes, a little dumbly, like Linhardt. He doesn’t know how. It just does, and he believes in that, as surely as he believes in the rising and setting of the sun.

“There.” Linhardt pulls away, and the glow abruptly fades before Byleth can think about it more. “Do you think you can do it? You can try it on me, if you like,” he grudgingly allows, “but you better not get it wrong.”

Byleth’s first try is more of a spark, not unlike something he used to get when trying to start a fire with some flint. Linhardt hisses in indignation, but Byleth coaxes him to sit back down for a second try, which thankfully goes much better than the first, to both of their surprise. Although there’s a stark difference between healing on the battlefield while his chest bleeds out from a giant axe wound and healing in a dorm room, it feels much the same—Byleth keeps his eyes on the light singe mark on Linhardt’s pale arm, ignores the sudden stinging pain on his own arm and tries not to let the mild irritation he knows is Linhardt’s show on his face.

“Good,” Linhardt says, when the glow fades and Byleth’s left feeling dizzy already. Linhardt takes one look at him and snorts. “It’s natural to feel a bit lightheaded after the first few times you use magic. It fades after a while, once your body gets used to it.”

The Nosferatu spell has Linhardt even more reluctant to teach than before, if that were even possible. “It’s _vampiric,_ that’s what it is,” he sighs, flipping through Byleth’s textbook. He had since relocated from the stiff chair to the softness of his bed, while Byleth had cleared himself a small space on the floor for him to sit down upon. “The history behind it is _intriguing,_ I suppose, but also ridiculously bloody. I have simply no idea how this was reclassified as faith magic when it should rightly remain dark magic instead.”

“The history?”

“Yes, well, it’s quite disturbing,” Linhardt says, but he looks both disturbed and ready to start spouting information like a fountain again, so Byleth supposes that’s something of an improvement. “No one’s quite sure _where_ exactly it originated from, or _who_ was the first to develop this spell, but its earliest recorded use was some 800 years ago…”

Byleth listens and does his best to process as much as he can, but it’s hard when Linhardt gets excited enough that he starts talking as fast as Ferdinand. The most he does understand is that the Nosferatu spell was originally abhorred by the masses and classified as the darkest of dark magics, but over the years a modified version of it had been used to heal patients in exchange of the healers’ health, and it had been lauded as the purest, most sacrificial faith magic that existed.

Linhardt’s nose scrunches up in distaste when he says that last part, and the sight makes an odd, bubbling sensation rise up in Byleth’s throat; when Linhardt finishes his impromptu history lesson with a bored “Honestly, if those people just wanted someone to _die_ for them, all they had to do was _say so,_ some healers are as mindless as sheep,” Byleth releases the strange sensation in what must be a laugh.

There’s a momentary beat of silence, where Byleth can feel the odd aftereffect of the laugh—it feels warm, like storing sunshine in his chest, but more than a little disorienting. When was the last time he had laughed before this? Had he _ever_ laughed before this? Father and the rest of the mercenaries had always made the occasional joke about his apparent lack of emotions, but…

When he looks up, Linhardt’s staring at him, expression unreadable again, before he smiles. “It’s nice to hear you laugh for once. Even if you have the worst sense of humor imaginable, to laugh over a terrible spell like this.”

By the time Byleth’s _finally_ able to cast a halfway-decent Nosferatu spell, the sun’s barely a flicker of light beneath the horizon, the sky beginning to fade from sunset purple to the black of the night. Linhardt had absolutely refused to be on the receiving end of Byleth’s frankly awful spell-casting, but had reluctantly acquiesced to accompanying him to the training grounds to practice on some training dummies.

“Could you get me dinner once you’re finished?” Linhardt whines, seated on the floor and leaning against a pillar, nibbling forlornly on his last sweet bun. Byleth’s surprised it had survived that long, really.

“Sure.” Byleth tries again, but the spell that comes crackling out is another burst of fire that burns the training dummy to a pathetic crisp.

He can hear the smirk in Linhardt’s voice when he speaks. “That’s the third one so far. It looks like you’re much better with reason magic than we thought.”

Right. Byleth flexes his fingers, wincing at the light burn marks on his palms—the misuse of magic apparently leads to side-effects on the caster as well, and he’s not looking forward to casting more faulty fire spells when he just wants to master Nosferatu and get it over with already. But it refuses to take shape in his hands, even when he can feel the magic ready at his fingertips—it’s as if it’s actively denying him its presence, telling him he isn’t good enough for it or something. Which is silly, because magic isn’t a sentient being—but Byleth’s been proven wrong several times while in this monastery. He wouldn’t be surprised if it happens again.

He’s looking down at his hands, trying to will the spell to existence, when he hears Linhardt stand up and step closer to him, sweet bun finished off. “I’m not sure if this will help,” he says, sighing as he fiddles with his hair, “but the first time I managed to cast the spell, I did it with the intention of hurting. It’s—” He shakes his head, like the very memory pains him to remember.

“It’s okay,” Byleth says, dropping his hands to his sides. The setting sun casts its familiar scarlet glow across Linhardt’s face, emphasizing his aristocratic features.

“The thing about magic,” Linhardt manages, sounding more confident now, “is that it _listens._ I know that sounds ridiculous, but I’ve always thought of it as something you work with rather than something you command. Sometimes it’s your friend, and—sometimes it’s the only thing you can trust to protect you. So.” He shrugs. “That’s just my interpretation, of course. You’re free to make your own. But I’ve learned it’s better to treat it as an equal, above everything else.”

 _An equal._ Byleth nods in acknowledgement, barely looking back to watch Linhardt retreat to the side of the pillar again. So he’s at least half-right—there _are_ people who think of magic as something semi-sentient, something that _listens,_ and the utter poetry of that makes him want to smile again. It’s unlike Linhardt, someone so usually straightforward and honest, to speak in metaphors when his specialty comes up, but then Byleth supposes there’s very little that’s literal about magic. Metaphors, he thinks, are probably the best things to use for them.

He retrieves a new training dummy from the storage room, then holds his hands in front of his chest, like he’s seen Linhardt do most often. (“Close to your heart,” Linhardt had said, guiding his wrists to the most appropriate position. “There’s religious meaning to it, of course, but I suggest against believing too firmly in that. Might just disappoint you.”)

 _With the intention of hurting…_ _something that listens… treat it as an equal._

When Byleth flings his hands out before him, it’s neither a spark of fire nor a crack of thunder, but a deep, midnight-black surge of energy that courses through his arms and out through his fingertips, toppling the training dummy over. It shakes and shudders and _writhes_ on the ground, and for a moment Byleth sees a soldier in its place, a bandit, a noble, an _enemy_ begging for mercy as he drains the life out of them—

And then it stops. The dark energy dissipates into the air, twinkling like stars against the night sky. The training dummy is a shriveled pile of rotted black straw.

“Well,” Linhardt says, at length, “looks like you took its dark magic origin far more seriously than most healers. Now how about that dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [sunset at garreg mach](https://twitter.com/vanitashours/status/1272274317515141120); ren i literally owe you my life  
> \- the alternate translations of creator sword linhardt said (sword of the heavenly emperor/sword of the supreme deity) came from the jpn translation of creator sword (tentei no ken/heavenly emperor's sword); tentei originates from the chinese word tiandi, which means supreme deity. thanks fire emblem wiki!  
> \- some dialogue lines (notably "and you.") are taken directly from linleth's C support. still can't get over linhardt just blatantly flirting with byleth like that. sir please calm down you are 16.  
> \- in previous FE games (gaiden, binding blade, sacred stones, awakening, fates, SOV), nosferatu was classified as black or dark magic, but i actually made up that in-fic lore Before i found out about it lol
> 
> next: miklan :)


	6. verdant rain moon (2) — “you are a terrible liar.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The advantage to always eating meals with Father, Byleth reflects, is that he already knows every Knight of Seiros down to the nuances in their fighting style.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ _ meet me on the battlefield _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtEiXNc3F2A)   
>  [ _ even on the darkest night, i will be your sword and shield _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtEiXNc3F2A)
> 
> sorry for the terrible fight scene coming up rip. also watch out for (temporary) character death in this

The advantage to always eating meals with Father, Byleth reflects, is that he already knows every Knight of Seiros down to the nuances in their fighting style.

Gilbert, along with their backliners Hubert and Bernadetta, hold off the reinforcements that refuse to stop coming up from the stairs and hidden entrances the bandits had used to ambush them. It’s an underhanded tactic, but Byleth has to admit it’s an effective one, too—Hubert seems to share the same sentiment, if the way they exchange glances is any indication.

It’s nothing very difficult, Byleth thinks, just a straightforward rush through the tower, and he finds his thoughts wandering more than once while in the middle of clashing swords (or lances, or axes) against bandits. This backfires much worse than he thought it would when they reach Miklan of Gautier—more accurately, when _he_ reaches Miklan, because Byleth had sped ahead of the other frontliners Edelgard and Caspar to take out the archers, and had gotten himself separated like a tactical genius.

The Creator Sword pulses in his grip, almost _purring_ in the presence of the Lance of Ruin. “Nice sword,” Miklan growls. The long, diagonal scar across his face shifts as he speaks.

“Nice lance,” Byleth returns.

Miklan rushes him with a snarl, but right away Byleth can tell he’s awful with a lance—Byleth dodges easily, parrying each thrust and jab with his own sword. Up close, he can see—no, _feel_ the lance rippling, hissing, the sharp protrusions at its sides seeming to lengthen and twist to snap at the sword. Byleth breaks away, striking Miklan using the segmented blade and sending him skidding backwards, enough to give the both of them space.

Miklan stumbles, but stands his ground, digging the lance into the floor and cutting a deep gouge into the stone. He may not be any good with a lance, but he still hits hard and fast, relying on wide sweeping attacks, and Byleth can only last so long by himself. Though they both wield Hero’s Relics, something feels _different_ about the Lance of Ruin—Byleth doesn’t know what, but he doesn’t plan on staying long enough to find out. He readies his sword to lash out—

“Byleth!”

 _Caspar. Edelgard._ He switches form midway, darting out to intercept Miklan’s thrust, but he’s too slow (or Miklan’s too fast, unnaturally fast), because he only barely deflects the lance with a sloppily-timed parry, and then there’s something _tearing_ through his flesh, mind-numbing pain that has him gasping and crumpling to one knee. _The lance, the lance,_ he tells himself, _get up, it’s nothing, just a lance,_ but it’s taking him all his effort just to _breathe._

The world spins when he manages to right himself, staggering backwards to lean against the railing. Edelgard and Caspar are facing off against Miklan, but the Lance of Ruin has a far wider reach than their axes, which look comically small next to the Hero’s Relic—Byleth huffs out a breath, then inhales as deep as he can, trying to ignore the relentless ache spreading from his torso to the rest of his body.

When Miklan moves again, Byleth’s ready—or more accurately, his sword is ready, because it lashes out like a whip and wraps around the tip of the lance. Byleth takes the chance to yank the surprised Miklan forward, and the man loses his balance for one second, which is all the time Edelgard needs to level the blade of her axe beneath his chin and command, “Yield.”

“Look at you,” Miklan spits. His grip on the lance hasn’t loosened. “Good little noble dogs, serving the Church so wonderfully _loyally._ What? Going to kill me? Why don’t you go right ahead, then?”

Edelgard’s eyes narrow, pale lavender darkening further under both the tower’s shadows and her own. “Feeling bold, aren’t you, speaking so loftily when you are the one at my mercy? We’re meant to take you in for questioning, and then your family can decide on what to do with you. Not us _noble dogs._ ”

With a _snap,_ Miklan rips the lance out of the Creator Sword’s grip, and the force is enough to pull Byleth stumbling onto his stomach. Paralyzing pain surges throughout his entire system, and he can’t move, can’t think, can’t _see,_ and the only thing he can process right now is _Edelgard, have to help_ and _it hurts it hurts it hurts_ and _why does it hurt, it was just a scratch, what’s wrong with that lance,_ and he thinks the world is crumbling to pieces around him for a moment until he realizes it actually _is._

Someone’s dragging him by the arms, and though he’s thankfully not on his stomach anymore, every movement sends jolts of pain crackling through his body—somehow he manages to get to his feet and follow someone’s lead, relying purely on instincts that tell him _keep running, keep moving._ The ground’s trembling, rumbling, then something _roars_ behind them and he skids to a stop when a chunk of the tower wall breaks off right in front of them, showering them in a fine rain of dust and stone. People are shouting, screaming, not just his classmates but some of the surviving bandits too, racing past him and vaulting over the wreckage to get away from—from—

Byleth turns around. He instantly wishes he could turn back time to five seconds ago, when he hadn’t been aware the _thing_ before him existed. He realizes he actually can.

“Don’t!” Sothis shrieks, jarring him enough to break his concentration. It’s like she’s bodily shielding a little red button labeled _Divine Pulse._ “You’re hurt, but not too heavily! I… I think! And focus, Byleth, before you get crushed!”

“Sorry,” he says, accidentally speaking aloud, but the monster before him roars again, drowning out all possible sound within a twenty-mile radius. Byleth nearly stumbles back once more, but he latches onto a piece of tower wall and manages to steady both himself and his thoughts. _What’s happening_ is the only thing he actually gets to think, though, before a horse whinnies next to his ear.

“ _Byleth,_ ” Father shouts, barely audible over the noise, “what the _hell_ happened to you?” And, without waiting for an answer, “Arnault, over here! Hurry it up!”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” Byleth asks, or tries to ask—his words come out broken and slurred, and he switches from leaning on the debris to leaning on Father’s steed.

Father gives him an exhausted look. “Kid, have you looked at yourself?”

Byleth hasn’t. He looks down, slowly lifting the arm he had been using to press down on the wound, and feels realization dawn on him very, very slowly when he sees the gash, his uniform ripped straight through and his skin turning a sickly shade of greenish purple, or purplish green.

“Oh,” he says, a little faintly.

This is far from the worst wound he’s ever had, all things considered, but it’s also far from the best. The rate at which the rest of his skin is turning greenish-purple-purplish-green is also more than a bit worrying. At the back of his head, Sothis winces. “It seems,” she squeaks, “I… did not realize the full extent of that dreadful lance.”

_What happened?_

“I can’t say for sure! But it almost definitely has something to do with… well… that.”

Somehow, Byleth doesn’t have to see her wave a hand at the monster to know it’s what she means. He turns to look at it again, forcing his vision to quit blurring and swimming, but the second time really isn’t any better than the first—the monster ( _demonic beast,_ Sothis corrects) is just as, well, monstrous as it had been a minute ago. It snaps an unfortunate bandit up in its jaws, and Byleth hears bones crack and shatter, hopeless screams abruptly cut off—

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when a familiar warmth washes over him, and Byleth nearly collapses from relief—he can physically feel whatever poison was in his injury being drawn out of him, the wound patching itself back up together. He opens his mouth and gets as far as “Thank you” before realizing this faith magic feels different—not like hot tea or scattered sunshine or library books, but—like music, like roses, like something beautiful and dangerous at once. “Dorothea.”

Dorothea smiles, sweat running down the side of her face. “What was the cute little pause for? Don’t tell me you mistook me for someone else, Byleth.”

Byleth decides against answering that, well aware his silence is answer enough in itself. When Dorothea finishes her Heal spell, she almost topples backward and Byleth has to grab her arm with perhaps not as much gentleness as the situation requires and keep her steady. She smiles at him, nods a thank-you, but someone’s calling her name and she has to leave, disappearing as quickly as she had arrived.

 _The beast, take care of it,_ Byleth tells himself, but he spares a cursory glance around them anyway. There is no telltale glow of faith magic anywhere else, nor is there a bob of dark green hair to be spied among the rest of the Black Eagles.

He swallows, and turns to the beast. It bellows, the sound thunderous and heart-wrenching at once, and Byleth can almost hear the acidic mixture of anger and bitterness making the beast _sing_ —but he can’t wax poetic about it for long, as he kicks his reflexes into overdrive and charges at the monster. Father, Edelgard, and Ferdinand have surrounded it as well, hacking away at the ridges in its scales to find weak spots, while Hubert, Petra, and Bernadetta snipe from afar, crouched behind chunks of stone wall shaken off by the beast’s rampage. Byleth ducks past the whistling arrows and hissing magic, swinging his sword at the beast’s bloodstained claw before it can swipe Edelgard’s head off, then diving to cut at its legs—

It screeches, its other claw darting forward with that same unnatural speed of Miklan’s from earlier, knocking Father off his mount and lobbing a block of cracked stone over at a frozen Bernadetta—Byleth moves to intercept it, even when all his instincts scream at him that it’s useless, he’s too far, _too slow,_ but then Petra is running, shoving Bernadetta out of the way only to gasp raggedly when the rock lands on her right leg instead with a sickening _crunch._ Dorothea is there in the microsecond it takes Byleth to blink—and the next thing he knows, he’s dropped to roll away from the beast’s claws, narrowly avoiding getting himself impaled on the sharp, gleaming things still dribbling with blood.

By this point, the fight seems almost pointless—their attacks are barely doing anything, while it’s taking every last bit of their strength to stay clear of the beast’s. Byleth can’t find time to land a decent hit in between desperate dodging, Gilbert’s heavy armor prevents him from matching the beast’s unfair speed, Ferdinand’s lance looks close to breakage, and Edelgard is getting slower with every movement, a gash on her dominant arm preventing her from lifting her axe. The gaps between Hubert’s spells are growing longer and longer, and Bernadetta’s run out of arrows, too—Byleth has a feeling the only thing keeping them alive is Father, who doggedly climbs back onto his horse and runs circles around the beast to keep it distracted, but he’s certain that’s not going to last much longer.

 _What can I do? What else is left?_ Byleth drags himself to hide behind some debris, exhaustion clogging his veins. _I can turn back time, warn them of this before it happens, kill Miklan before it happens—but what if I can’t change it, what if it just happens again—_

And then he hears a string of muttering, _no-no-no_ again and again, the shallow breaths that come before heaving sobs, and Byleth turns to see Linhardt bent over a motionless Caspar, blood running from the hole in his chest.

“Linhardt,” Byleth says, shuffling over to get a closer look—and knows, right away, that there’s no hope.

But Linhardt doesn’t know—or knows but doesn’t _want_ to acknowledge it, his hands hovering uselessly over what is unmistakably a lance wound in Caspar’s chest, tears streaming down his face. “No, no, no,” Linhardt’s gasping, “it’s not working, why isn’t it working, why—why—”

“Linhardt—”

“He can’t die, he can’t _die,_ ” Linhardt breathes, and he’s shaking too much that his hands brush against Caspar’s blood. He _sobs,_ then, misery entangled in the drawn-out wails—“He can’t die, he promised, I _promised—_ ”

Byleth makes the mistake of looking at Caspar’s face, eyes wide open, mouth slack, and he knows, logically, that this should be no different from the rest of the corpses he’s seen. There should not be a freezing blade wedged in his chest at the sight of someone so vibrant suddenly so _lifeless,_ and all Byleth can think about is how he hadn’t reacted fast enough a while ago, hadn’t taken Miklan down before Edelgard and Caspar had to help out, hadn’t even seen Caspar go down but can imagine it so clear in his head it almost passes as a memory—Miklan’s scar distorting as he snarls, the Lance of Ruin and all six of its protruding spikes going through Caspar’s chest and coming out of his back, tearing his flesh, piercing his heart—

A roar. Byleth reacts first, pushing himself up to his feet to scramble back before the beast’s claws can crush his head. But then he hears tearing flesh, a choked sob cut short, and when he looks into dark blue eyes slipping closed, slow as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, he knows it—this will not be the last time he sees Linhardt die. This will not be the last time he sees any of his classmates die.

He closes his eyes, sinks into the dizzying sensation. When he opens them again, they are at the entrance to the tower, and beside him Caspar is grinning at something Petra’s just said. Linhardt is behind them, half-dozing off on Ferdinand’s shoulder.

Sothis says nothing. Neither does he.

When they’re ascending the tower’s rickety steps, Byleth breathes in deep and slows to fall in step with Linhardt—Linhardt gives him an odd look but doesn’t offer anything, and Byleth wants to curse himself out. Of course Linhardt would be anxious. Of course his hands would be shaking. Fighting rarely ever gets easier for those who hate it. “Linhardt,” he starts, “do you know if anything happens to a person who wields a Hero’s Relic without the appropriate Crest?”

The familiar topic must be just the slightest bit comforting, because some of the tension seems to leave Linhardt’s shoulders when he speaks. “There are few recorded events,” he says, cocking his head in thought, “but many report that they lead to the existence of demonic beasts. I’m sure you can tell what those are based on the name.” He shudders. “The sketches of them in the library books are awful. Practically formless. If I had less sense, I’d say I want to see one for myself, just to know exactly what they look like.”

“What if that happens today?” Byleth blurts out. It’s a little less subtle than he likes, but frankly he’s surprised no one else had thought this might happen. “Miklan doesn’t have a Crest. But he’s wielding the Lance of Ruin.”

Linhardt’s gaze darkens. “Glad to know someone else has been thinking on the way here. But he’s had it for this long and stayed relatively human, hasn’t he—he can give us the honor of staying that way a little while longer.”

Byleth turns away—there’s nothing he can say that won’t make him sound suspicious.

Once again, Father and Edelgard clear the front lines of bandits, and Gilbert takes care of enemy reinforcements. Once again, Byleth breaks away from the rest of the group to cut down the archers and reaches Miklan first. But this time Byleth is ready, leaping back whenever he sees Miklan change his stance in preparation for a wide sweep of the lance, and when Edelgard calls his name from behind, he’s already sent the Creator Sword segments to lash out and wrap around the Lance of Ruin. “Go!” he shouts—“Kill him!”

Edelgard hesitates—not because she’d rather not kill, as Byleth well knows, but because the Church prefers him alive—but then she nods, charging forward while Byleth keeps Miklan in place—

And then. And then.

The first time around, Byleth had been too distracted by whatever dark energy that lance had been dipped in, and only after Dorothea had healed him had he been able to pay actual attention to his no-longer-blurry surroundings. But he’s fully aware of himself now, relatively unharmed and relatively near Miklan when the transformation starts.

He also hears the screams.

The Creator Sword wrenches itself away from the pulsing lance, and it reminds Byleth to push Edelgard and Caspar (both shocked and staring in horror, but _safe_ and _alive_ and that’s what matters) back as well before the beast can fully form right in front of them. It’s too big for the narrow space in the tower, the spiked ridges of its spine reminiscent of the Lance of Ruin brushing the ceiling, and it roars as it claws at the ground, whipping tail crashing against the walls.

Edelgard swallows, her body trembling but her eyes wide in a mixture of terror and curiosity. “That—That’s a demonic beast,” she says, voice faint.

“We’re not gonna have to take that down, are we?” Caspar hisses. “Look at its scales! No way are our weapons gonna do anything against it.”

“Magic, maybe,” Edelgard suggests, “but its arms are long, it’s got better reach, and our magic users can’t cast spells so far—”

“Axes hit hardest, maybe they can chip away at its hide and give other weapons a weak spot to target—”

The beast screeches, throwing its head back and sending a rain of debris around them as the tower rumbles dangerously. “Get back to the others first,” Byleth orders, pushing the two of them back. Bandits are racing past the rock they’ve crouched hidden behind, claws shooting out to snatch them into the creature’s jaws. “I agree with axes. Dark magic might work too. Tell the rest and get back here quick.”

Caspar’s eyes widen. “But Byleth, you—”

Edelgard tugs at his wrist. “Let’s go.”

“No! He can’t face that thing alone, I don’t care how good he is—”

“We have to trust that he’ll hold out until we come back—”

Byleth shoves them back, uncaring if they fall on their faces—he reaches up, extends the Creator Sword and slashes at the beast’s claw, a second away from crushing the three of them beneath it. The sword barely leaves a nick, probably the equivalent of a papercut for humans, but thick black blood splatters his face and hair and the beast screams as it pulls away, the ground shaking as it backs away. “ _Go,_ ” Byleth repeats, and this time Caspar only gives him a pleading look before Edelgard drags him away.

He takes a deep breath, and steps out.

The monster’s eyes swivel to face him the second he moves, and it probably recognizes the Creator Sword because it _bounds_ towards him, jaws opening wide and showing off an impressive amount of equally-impressive teeth. Byleth leaps to the side, stretching his arm and extending his sword as far as it can go—it cuts a deep gash along the corner of the beast’s mouth, staining the blade an inky black, and the beast rears back with a wail, spraying more of its black blood around the area.

Byleth doesn’t get the chance to attack again, or hide somewhere safe, or do much of anything aside from stand there when something _slams_ into him, throwing him against the cracked tower wall. All the air in his lungs comes out in a choked gasp—simply breathing sends sharp, ringing pains through his body, and he has to drag himself behind a small mound of rubble to avoid falling through the now-crumbling wall. The beast snorts, pacing back and forth in what little space it has, claws cutting deep into the stone floor.

The Creator Sword seems to shudder as the beast’s blood slides off its blade. Byleth pushes himself up, just enough to be ready to run as soon as the monster spots him, and tries to get a better look at the damn thing now that there isn’t so much _movement—_ the wound across its face is still bleeding, but Byleth can tell that’s barely enough to so much as stun the beast, and it’s a difficult spot to target lest one risk getting snapped up in its jaws. Maybe its eyes—the strange holes on its face look just the right size for an arrow or five to sink into… but that would require the beast staying still long enough to aim at such a precise location…

He shifts to lean on his knee, but the movement must disturb a rock or send vibrations through the ground because the beast’s head whirls back to look at him, and it’s charging forward again and Byleth scrambles to get away but it’s _too_ _fast again—_

A crack of thunder, and the beast falls back, hissing and clawing blindly—Byleth leaps out of the way just in time, regretting the movement as soon as his ribs make their complaint. He nearly collapses onto Dorothea, her arms still outstretched from the Thunder spell, and she yelps as she rushes to steady him, hands moving to hover over his torso. The comforting warmth of faith magic almost makes him want to fall asleep. “Good thing Professor told me to go ahead,” she mumbles.

Father must’ve known something like this would’ve happened. Byleth attempts to shrug, fails miserably when his body aches all over, and settles for nodding instead. But the Heal spell is cut short when the beast roars again, lunging for them with that same unnatural speed, and Byleth wraps his arms around Dorothea to pull the both of them to the side, gasping brokenly when he stumbles and falls on his back, pain exploding like starbursts all across his body and extending into his vision. “Byleth!” Dorothea cries, her hands shaking as she kneels over him, but she doesn’t have time to cast another Heal spell before she has to fling her arms out once more, thunder crackling across the air to send the beast howling in what sounds more like anger than pain. “Byleth, please—”

Byleth pushes himself up, swaying as he coughs blood into his palm—Dorothea manages another Thunder spell, but this one fizzles out on the monster’s hide instead of singeing it like the previous ones. She curses under her breath, and for some reason the vulgar words in such a usually sweet voice make Byleth want to smile, even when he’s bruised and broken and barely able to breathe. “The eyes,” he chokes out. “Or the mouth. Vulnerable areas.”

“Before that, let me—” Dorothea sighs as she waves her hand over his torso again, the white glow soothing Byleth for all of two seconds before the beast roars again and the magic blinks out like a dying candle. “That thing is _se-rious-ly_ getting on my nerves,” she grinds out, squeezing her eyes shut to focus on the Heal spell again. “Come on, when are the others getting here—”

Just then a flurry of arrows race past them, and the beast hisses in annoyance—unless they had hit anything important, the arrows probably wouldn’t do much against its hide. Byleth turns—it’s Petra, riding with Father as he charges forward, lance outstretched at his side. “Byleth!” he shouts, just before the beast’s snarl drowns his voice out—“Good job!”

Dorothea manages a shaky smile. “What a sweet father.”

“Eyes,” Byleth groans, “tell him—tell them to—” But his throat feels scraped raw, like the beast’s dragged its claws down his neck, and his blood speckles Dorothea’s wrists. “Sorry,” he says— _squeaks,_ really.

She shakes her head. “Let me fix you first—”

“ _Tell them,_ ” Byleth forces out, shoving her away—she stumbles back with an offended protest, but Byleth stretches his arm, the Creator Sword humming in clear anticipation as he follows Father and Petra into the skirmish. Father’s horse is fast, running circles around the beast like last time while Petra fires arrows with admirable speed, but it’s no use if the monster can barely even feel them. He opens his mouth, ready to yell _aim for the eyes,_ but nothing except more blood comes out, and he has to duck before the beast’s tail can detach his head from his neck.

Dorothea had done her job, but just barely—breathing still sends a sharp pain through his chest, like glass shards stuck in his lungs, and his movements are too sluggish for him to be of any real help. Still, Byleth can’t just lie down and wait for them to take the beast down—but that motivation doesn’t help when the beast turns around and catches sight of him, snarling as it moves to smack him away with a sweep of its arm. Mustering the last of his strength, Byleth digs the Creator Sword into the monster’s claw right before it would’ve thrown him halfway across the tower again, and Byleth latches onto the ridges beneath blood-slick scales while the beast shrieks and flails.

 _With the intention of hurting,_ he remembers, _with the intention of hurting, hurt it, hurt it, kill it, come on—_

He lets out an involuntary gasp as dark magic curdles in his palms, shapeless and formless before snaking down to bury within the creature’s claw. The magic spreads through it like a parasite, black veins spiraling up as far as half of its arm before they begin to _pulse,_ not unlike the Creator Sword, and Byleth almost doubles over when he feels what can only be described as pure, unfiltered _power_ surging into him. With it comes air rushing back into his lungs, energy flowing through his arms and legs again, clarity returning to his vision so rapidly it’s dizzying—

And then it stops, and the beast is throwing him off of it again, but this time Byleth spins and lands lightly on his two feet, Creator Sword purring as if pleased. _Nosferatu,_ Byleth thinks, looking down at his palms. His veins pulse black for a moment before returning to normal. _The original dark magic…_

“Byleth!”

His head snaps up. The rest of the Black Eagles have arrived, Edelgard and Ferdinand leading them—Byleth searches hurriedly for a shock of blue hair and finds Caspar just a step ahead of Linhardt, only lagging behind the others because Linhardt tugs at his arm to stay still and let him properly cast Heal. The sigh that leaves Byleth can’t be any more relieved. “Stop it from moving,” he shouts, hoping at least one of them will hear him. (Right—his voice is back, too.) “Focus on one part and chip away at its armor, then use arrows and magic to target its eyes when it’s stunned—”

He doesn’t get further than that, though he thankfully doesn’t need to, because he hears the heavy _thump_ of a body hitting the floor. Byleth is running before he can think about it, helping Father up to his feet before the beast can crush him underfoot. “Thanks,” Father grunts. Petra guides the horse to circle back, but the monster’s lashing tail prevents her from getting much further, and it’s obvious she’s being backed into a corner.

They take off running, and the beast’s attention swerves over to them, allowing Petra to get back to relative safety. Byleth flicks the Creator Sword, separating it into segments again. “We need to focus on one part.”

“I know, kid. Already did.” Father jabs his spear at the beast’s right leg, where it seems to be putting less weight on—viscous black blood is running in rivulets down deep cuts and gashes, nothing serious individually but hindering enough all together. Byleth stares at it, and wonders why he had felt the need to try and tell Father what to do in the first place. “Rally the rest of our Eagles, will you? I want my horse back.” Then Father’s off, his steed meeting him halfway and allowing him to swing back on top of its back with the practiced ease of an experienced cavalier. Petra slings her bow across her back and pulls out her sword in turn.

Byleth breathes, deep and full—it stinks of blood and steel, but it’s nothing he isn’t used to.

“Is Byleth here?”

The inn isn’t well-furnaced, and cold seeps in from the storm outside—Byleth barely even reacts at his name, already half-buried in his blankets on the floor. He’d let Father and Gilbert take the two beds in the room, mainly because he hears them talk about their back pains every other dinner together and Byleth would rather not have that on his conscience.

“Maybe learn to knock, von Hevring,” Father snorts, jerking a thumb over at Byleth (or, for others, the Byleth-shaped lump beneath the blankets). “What’ll you do if you catch Byleth alone next time, huh? I don’t even want to think about it.”

Byleth gives Father a confused look, and Linhardt seems to do the same. “What?” they say, near-simultaneously.

“Goddess. Never mind.” Father shakes his head. To Gilbert, he grumbles, “Teenagers. I’m tired of ‘em.”

Byleth follows Linhardt out to the room just down the hall—they hadn’t had enough gold to pay for ten individual rooms, which is really just the icing on the cake after the demonic beast left them all injured and exhausted, the tower collapsed on them, and the rain soaked them to the bone. Father’s horse has to lug around a heavily-protected Lance of Ruin around, too.

(After the tower fell in on itself, the once-impressive structure now little nothing else but a mound of rubble and ruin, Gilbert had given it a long look, then sighed. “Come. We must search for the lance.”

Not Miklan’s body, Byleth noted—somehow, this didn’t at all surprise him.

They found the lance after nearly an hour of digging through the tower’s remains, Miklan’s broken and decidedly human corpse still holding onto the weapon in a cold, stiff grip Byleth pried loose. Many of the students turned away—Edelgard and Hubert did not. “A shame,” Edelgard murmured. “I at least wanted to return him to his family first.”

“Perhaps this was better for him,” Hubert mused. “I hate to think of how a noble house that prides itself on Crests would punish him for this.”)

Caspar is fast asleep on one of the beds, snoring like a truck, while Ferdinand is nodding off on the floor when Byleth and Linhardt enter. “He volunteered to take the floor,” Linhardt says, waving vaguely at Ferdinand. “Chivalry is not dead, I see.”

“What did you call me for?”

“So straight to the point. You can tell us if you don’t like our company, you know.”

Byleth puts on his best frown, but Linhardt only smiles in response, so perhaps it’s not quite as stern as he expected. “I wanted to ask,” he says, voice low, “how you knew about the demonic beast.”

His response is instantaneous. “What do you mean? I didn’t.”

Linhardt huffs, looking almost offended. “Do you think me so dull as to not see how you were acting during that whole fight? Running ahead of the others, restless and jittery—and when you were up against the beast, and you fought against him by yourself to give the rest of us time…” He pauses, breathes, clenches his fists. “I know you were a mercenary. But none of that adds up. You looked desperate.”

“Desperate,” Byleth repeats hollowly.

“Like you needed to—” Linhardt sighs. “To kill him. Before anything else.”

There are probably a hundred different ways Byleth can go about this—he can pretend he has no idea what Linhardt’s talking about, that he was just doing his part for the mission, that he hadn’t known Miklan would really turn into a demonic beast, that he had wanted the rest of the Black Eagles to stay safe and he’d been frightened of the beast like anyone else. He can shake his head and say Linhardt must just have the wrong idea about this whole thing.

Or he can tell Linhardt _I watched you die—_ he can tell Linhardt _I heard Petra’s leg break in half, I saw Caspar with a bloody hole in his chest, I watched the light fade from your eyes, I know how you look like dead and I can’t ever forget that._ There are a hundred different things Byleth can say, but these are the words perched on the tip of his tongue, teetering precariously off the edge.

“A dream,” Byleth blurts out. “I saw it in a dream.”

It takes approximately two and a half seconds for Linhardt to say, “What?”

“Last night, I dreamed of a great black beast,” Byleth says, just barely avoiding stammering over what must be the worst lie he’s ever tried to make. “It—It had the Lance of Ruin with it, and there were bodies everywhere, and—it was terrifying. I thought… I thought maybe it meant something, seeing the lance there with it, even if I’ve only ever seen it in books…”

He trails off, thinking of other embellishments to add to his lie and coming up perfectly blank, as he’d expected. Linhardt just stares at him, perfectly wordless. Ferdinand’s fully asleep on the floor when he finally speaks again. “Byleth,” Linhardt says, enunciating every syllable, “you are a terrible liar.”

“It—It’s _true,_ ” Byleth insists, knowing full well it’s not.

“You know full well it’s not.” Linhardt frowns, leaning in closer as if he can discern the truth on Byleth’s face. Byleth hurriedly schools his expression into a perfectly blank slate. “Hmm. No matter. I’ll get the truth out of you someday.” He smiles as he leans back, and Byleth has to suppress the sigh of relief. “But you owe me another few hours of research in exchange for letting go of this secret of yours.”

“Oh… again?” Byleth weakly protests. After faith magic training that day, they’d had dinner with Father and the other Knights of Seiros, the only other people still eating that late at night—Linhardt had pestered Catherine about Thunderbrand the whole half hour—and then they’d gone back to Linhardt’s room to conduct his “research,” composed primarily of some poking and prodding that had extended all the way until midnight. Even then, Linhardt hadn’t been fully satisfied with whatever he’d noted down, and the only way Byleth had managed to squirm out by early morning was promise they could exchange favors some other time.

Linhardt pouts. “What do you mean, _again?_ It wasn’t so bad last time, was it? And you discovered plenty of interesting things about yourself, didn’t you?”

“Well, maybe, but—”

“Then it’s alright! Isn’t it?” Linhardt smiles again, and—and everything about this, sitting in an inn room, Caspar peacefully asleep and Linhardt smiling so happily at him, his hands clean of blood for once—it makes Byleth want to step back and freeze this moment in time, make sure nothing ever changes or breaks or dies. Today will not be the last time he sees them die, he knows—but he badly, desperately wants it to be.

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s wanted something so _much._ He wonders if he ever has.

Byleth awakes to the sunlight. He also awakes to hair in his mouth.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out where he is, even if he doesn’t always have the fastest deduction skills—he slides out of Linhardt’s bed as quickly as he can while making sure not to disturb the bed too much nor step on Ferdinand’s face, then hurries back to Father and Gilbert’s room.

Father opens the door for him, looking as unimpressed as ever with a cheap toothbrush stuck in his mouth. “Thanks for telling me you were having a sleepover, kid.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Byleth grumbles. Gilbert is sitting by the tiny desk in the room, nursing a cup of tea and looking like the thin mattress hadn’t done his back pains wonders. “I just… fell asleep.”

“Yeah, well, I can see that. You’ve got hair in your mouth, by the way.”

Byleth spits out the ridiculously long strands of green hair out of his mouth, and by the time Father comes back from the bathroom, he’s certain he’s swallowed enough hair to count that as his breakfast for the day. “What’d you spend so long there for anyway?”

“Linhardt wanted to do research.”

“What, in the middle of the _night?_ ”

“He… He’s like that,” Byleth says, vaguely wondering why he even cares about defending Linhardt. This isn’t even something to defend, really. All Linhardt had done last night was poke and prod at him some more while occasionally asking a few questions and looking over the Creator Sword, and Byleth must have fallen asleep standing, because he doesn’t remember getting into the bed. That must mean Linhardt had helped him there as well, which is kind of nice of him. He’ll have to remember to thank him for that later.

Father shakes his head. “Alright, kid. Keep your secrets.”

“Secrets?” Byleth weakly repeats. But Father just shakes his head again, and Byleth decides it’s better if they leave it at that.

The storm from last night has cleared up, and they leave the village before the sun’s finished crawling back up the sky. On the trek home, Dorothea insists on seeing Byleth’s Nosferatu spell, and only after five minutes of pestering does he comply—except the spell fizzles out like a doused candle, if the candle’s flames could be black. Both Dorothea and Sothis burst into giggles, and Byleth can’t even do anything but smile back.

Beside him, Petra is talking to Ferdinand about the wildlife in her homeland Brigid—ahead are Father and Gilbert, their conversation an easy discussion about the village they had just left, while Edelgard chews on some of the candies the inn had displayed at the front entrance, her pockets rustling tellingly, and Hubert bending down to remind her not to _eat too much, Lady Edelgard, or you’ll get a toothache like last time again_ —a little further behind are Caspar and Bernadetta, talking (yelling and muttering, specifically) about why they hate each other’s respective preferred weapons. Linhardt trails behind, flipping through a book he had most definitely stolen from the village library.

Byleth deliberately slows down, letting himself fall into step beside Linhardt. He glances up from the book, mouth open as if ready to defend himself, but only blinks at Byleth when they make eye contact. Then he smiles, light and easy. “I wonder,” he says, “how I’ll get another few hours of your time for my next study, Byleth.”

“I wonder. Tell me when you think of how.”

Linhardt huffs out a laugh. Byleth looks up at the sky, watches the sunbeams spilling all around them like a gentle shower of light.

He closes his eyes. It feels nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe title drop :)  
> it's semi-canon miklan is awful with lances because his skill proficiency in it is at E (as compared to axe in C and heavy armor in D). probably just because it isn't a requirement to be an armored knight but Still
> 
> next: more suffering!


	7. horsebow moon — “really? sweet buns breakfast service?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth had never particularly cared for Flayn before—not in a bad way, just in a sort of… Well, they exchanged greetings whenever they passed by each other in the hallways, but that was fairly normal. And he fished for her sometimes—he always felt good about himself when her face lit up with wonder and happiness at some rare fish that had happened to get itself caught on his line. But that was about as far as their relationship went. Seteth, though he’d gotten used to Byleth’s presence, still trailed behind Flayn in a manner too similar to that of Hubert trailing Edelgard that it was almost comical.
> 
> And now Flayn’s missing, and Byleth wonders if he should have paid more attention. Should have talked to Flayn more. Should have done something, anything, just so there wouldn’t be an empty space at the Knights’ dining table where the siblings used to sit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[step away from the window, go back to sleep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ByMEx50Zc) _
> 
> some more shitty fight scenes :/ but also, a new friend appears!

Byleth had never particularly cared for Flayn before—not in a bad way, just in a sort of… Well, they exchanged greetings whenever they passed by each other in the hallways, but that was fairly normal. And he fished for her sometimes—he always felt good about himself when her face lit up with wonder and happiness at some rare fish that had happened to get itself caught on his line. But that was about as far as their relationship went. Seteth, though he’d gotten used to Byleth’s presence, still trailed behind Flayn in a manner too similar to that of Hubert trailing Edelgard that it was almost comical.

And now Flayn’s missing, and Byleth wonders if he should have paid more attention. Should have talked to Flayn more. Should have done something, _anything,_ just so there wouldn’t be an empty space at the Knights’ dining table where the siblings used to sit.

Even with nearly the whole monastery mobilized, the investigation is slow-going—any potential leads turn out to be dead ends or unfounded rumors, and the days slowly stretch into a full week of no news. Father is somber during lunch on that Sunday, just pushes his food around and sighs into his plate. “You find anything, kid?”

Byleth shakes his head, the movement mostly muscle memory by this point. They’ve had this exact exchange everyday for the past week, and still nothing has changed.

Father groans and buries his face in his hands. “Aside from the whole mess being annoying and concerning as hell, it’s _confusing,_ too. Doesn’t make sense, you know. Flayn’s not the type to just run off without telling anyone, is she? And the monastery is big, but not _that_ big. We’ve searched everywhere that matters by this point. Where could she be? Underground?”

He spits the last word out in obvious sarcasm, but the next few seconds are silent, and Byleth knows they’re both contemplating the possibility.

Despite everything, there are still errands Byleth has to complete—he helps prepare the food again, though this time all he has to do is hand ingredients over to one of the monastery chefs rather than actually cook anything himself, which is a relief, and then he has to help Petra out in the greenhouse. She’s still suspicious about Shamir, but Byleth’s seen Shamir around Catherine enough times by now that Byleth knows Shamir isn’t the type of person to just up and kidnap a child, though she might look the type from afar.

After greenhouse duties (Petra does all the work while Byleth mutely hands over some sunflowers he had picked, to her delight), he has to head up to the library and arrange a bookshelf someone had knocked over like an idiot. Sothis busies herself with hopping over cracks in the road and petting the cats, which seem to notice her presence and purr in contentment at her gentle scratches. _Sothis,_ Byleth asks, _do you know anything? About Flayn’s disappearance?_

“I know as much as you do. Which is very little, if you weren’t aware.” She tries lifting a cat in the air, but her hands phase through it. “Though something feels _off_ about her, don’t you think? Not just her—I mean Seteth and Rhea too. Like they aren’t quite…” Sothis waves a hand in the air. “What they seem to be.”

Byleth remembers the few times he’s had to talk to the Archbishop, whenever he accompanied Father to the audience chamber, and almost shivers at the thought. There’s something in those kind eyes and kind smile that sends shudders down his spine, a subtle fear creeping along his skin like a parasite lying in wait. And her voice, silky smooth, soft as a snake slithering after its prey—he doesn’t trust her. He _can’t,_ really.

Briefly, he wonders if _she’s_ got anything to do with Flayn’s disappearance. No one should be free of suspicion, after all.

The library is empty when he arrives, which he had expected—everyone else is busy trying to look for more clues, after all, as ordered by their House leaders and professors, but Byleth honestly doubts they’re going to find anything new after a whole week of nothing, harsh as it is to believe. And he doesn’t have the keenest eye or anything either, so really, he’s more useful doing chores like this instead of running around hopelessly.

Tomas shows him to the upended bookshelf, which has been too heavy for any of the other staff to fix by themselves, but Byleth’s more or less used to heavy lifting. He works slowly, managing to prop the bookshelf up after working up a sweat, then gathers the fallen books up and starts arranging them by alphabetical order. Sothis sighs in boredom and complains about the dullness of the job, but Byleth doesn’t mind. It feels good, being helpful, and a job that doesn’t require much thought is a refreshing change from all the quick thinking required on a battlefield. Maybe he really is more suited to academy life than he thought.

Byleth pauses. _Is_ he? It’s only been a few months since he and Father had arrived here. Or had it already been longer, and he hadn’t noticed because he had… liked it? He mentally counts the months that have passed and blanches when he realizes it’s been almost half a year. He had assumed they’d pack up and leave as soon as the Archbishop found a more suitable professor, but he doubts she’s even looking for one anymore, if she ever had been in the first place. But it’s been five months, and Father hasn’t said a thing about leaving—Byleth hasn’t thought about it in a while, either.

He does miss the traveling a little. It was one of the few things he genuinely enjoyed as a mercenary, getting to see what Fódlan had to offer, and fishing in every river and lake near their camps. But he’s never particularly enjoyed _fighting,_ even if some people might think that. It’s mind-numbing at best and deadly at worst. He actually prefers cooking over it, really, even if he’s far more atrocious at anything without fish in it.

So does he really want to go back to the mercenary life?

A _thump_ and a pained yelp drags him out of his thoughts, and Byleth welcomes the distraction up until he turns around and sees Linhardt standing by a table, balancing an armful of books in one hand while rubbing his knee with the other. “Oh, Byleth,” he mutters, giving Byleth his best pitiful look. “You’re here?”

“ _You’re_ here?” Byleth returns.

Linhardt snorts. “It appears we were both too lost in thought to notice the other. What are you here for?”

“Fixing a bookshelf. Someone knocked it down the other day, I think.”

“Ah, that someone will be Felix. From the Blue Lions,” Linhardt adds, when Byleth makes his confusion clear. “Goodness, you really need to get to know more people in this academy, it’s been months and you still know no one outside of our class, do you? Anyway, I was there when it happened. Sylvain was pestering him about something and Felix brought his _sword_ to the library, the complete animal, and you can guess what happened next. But won’t you sit with me?” he asks, drawing a chair out for himself with a little smile. “You’re already here, after all.”

Against Byleth’s better sense, he leaves the unordered books on the floor and settles into the seat across Linhardt, peering at the volumes piled around him. “Crests?”

“The Crest of Cethleann, specifically. It’s one of the Saints, so there’s more coverage and history on it than yours does.” Linhardt cracks open the first book; Byleth expects him to bury his nose in the pages and fall silent for the next eight hours, but he keeps talking instead, steady but not too slow. “It was only the other day that I discovered Flayn had a major Crest of Cethleann. Quite intriguing, don’t you think? And rare enough to warrant research on, too, which is what I was aiming for until she disappeared like this. So I was hoping to find out more about her Crest outside of what I already know, to perhaps find some clue as to where she might be…” He shrugs. “Or who might be curious enough to kidnap her.”

Byleth tilts his head a little. Tomas passes by, thankfully not sparing a glance at the still-messy bookshelf. “Don’t you have the minor Crest of Cethleann?”

Linhardt hums in affirmation. “But a minor Crest pales when compared to its major one. I can only imagine how it feels like whenever Flayn’s Crest activates. Still, I can’t think of anyone who might have a motive to kidnap her, and she should know better than to run away by herself… perhaps she’s eloped with some past lover her brother tried to vanquish before…”

They read into the night. Linhardt scribbles notes down on two different notebooks, and shows Byleth every piece of information he can find on the Crest of Flames with an excitement that’s almost infectious. Byleth, for his part, answers the homework for the next week and does his best to arrange Linhardt’s books in alphabetical order, to make up for neglecting the pitiful bookshelf. He’ll get back to it tomorrow—they only have two classes in the morning, and the rest of the afternoon is free.

(He can’t quite explain why he wants to sit here with Linhardt, when standing up and going to the bookshelf would be much more productive. Maybe he’s tired. Maybe he likes Linhardt more than he likes the bookshelf. Maybe… oh, whatever. Does it matter?)

“We’ll miss dinner,” Byleth tells him, when one of the three still-flickering candles dies out. Well, two, now.

“Mm.” Linhardt turns a page. “You can go without me. This looks like it will take a while longer.” He breaks off to write something down, pen flying in illegible scrawls.

Byleth frowns. “Have you eaten at all, today?”

“Of course. A while ago.” Linhardt deigns to look up from his book at last, and Byleth instantly recognizes the expression on his face. He’s not leaving, no matter how much food Byleth may try to coax him with. “I promise I’ll attend class tomorrow, if that makes you feel better. You can even get me sweet buns for breakfast, to wake me up,” Linhardt adds, a soft smile on his face.

“I don’t—” Byleth frowns, but Linhardt’s smile only grows, and he wonders if his frown is a pout. Linhardt must be rubbing off on him. “Alright, fine.”

“Really? Sweet buns breakfast service?”

“If it’ll wake you up.”

Linhardt is not at his dorm when Byleth enters.

The door is unlocked, and Byleth had assumed Linhardt had left it so in order to avoid getting up to open the door for Byleth, but he’s not inside. His bed is messy, but not enough that it looks slept in. Had Linhardt fallen asleep at the library, then? Byleth can’t bring his plate of sweet buns up there, so he clears the desk of some papers and leaves the dish there before exiting the dorm and starting the long walk up to the library.

When he arrives, the table is empty. Byleth stares at it. The chair Linhardt had been sitting on is pushed away from the table, like Linhardt had left without bothering to put it back in place, but the strangest part is that all his books and notes from last night are still scattered atop the table, just as Byleth remembers them.

He knows Linhardt spends the night at the library sometimes. He also knows Linhardt never leaves his notes behind once he leaves.

“What brings you here so early, Byleth?” someone asks—Byleth clamps down on his own wrist to keep from drawing his sword. Behind him is Tomas, standing at the library doorway and looking politely confused. “Were you looking for young Linhardt? He just left.”

Byleth’s expecting relief to wash through him at that, but somehow only more dread fills his gut. “Why did he leave all his…?”

“He looked awfully worried. Perhaps he forgot something?”

It isn’t late enough to warrant hurrying for class, and Linhardt surely would have remembered whatever he might have forgotten hours before the early morning. “Did you see where he went?” Byleth demands, striding over to the table. The books are open on some nondescript page about the history behind the Crest of Cethleann, and nothing immediately stands out. What could Linhardt have discovered that would have him rushing out and leaving his prized research behind?

Tomas shakes his head. “Afraid not.”

 _Class,_ Byleth thinks— _he’s in class, I have to believe he’s in class, nothing’s wrong, he’s fine._ But when he runs down to the Black Eagles classroom, taking the stairs nearly five at a time, only Edelgard and Hubert are there, comparing their answers to Professor Hanneman’s homework. “Oh, Byleth,” Edelgard greets, looking up at him, “good mor—er, why do you look so frazzled?”

“Have you seen Linhardt?” Byleth asks, though he probably sounds like a frightened animal.

Edelgard slowly shakes her head, standing up from her seat. “Did something happen?”

“We were—we were in the library last night, and he stayed behind to study more but he promised he’d show up to class in time but he wasn’t in his dorm and he wasn’t in the library either and—” And for some reason all Byleth can think about is the empty space at the dining table where Flayn used to eat, the sweet buns probably getting cold sitting lonely on Linhardt’s desk, Linhardt’s books and notes on the library table he should have fixed up and brought to his room—and Linhardt had _promised_ he’d come to class and Byleth should have known better, should have _known_ promises were useless and pointless and made to be broken—

“Byleth?” Edelgard steps closer, brow furrowed in concern, and Byleth realizes he’s been standing and staring and shaking for the past several seconds. “Could you tell us what happened again? Slowly. It’s alright.”

Byleth swallows, breathes, and recounts what had happened, which isn’t much. It’s only when he finishes that he wonders if he may have overreacted—there are plenty of other places Linhardt can be, after all, and maybe he had gone back to his dorm after Byleth had just left it. It’s entirely possible.

Yet—hadn’t that been what he had thought about Flayn, too?

Edelgard leans back, arms folded over her chest. “If I remember correctly,” she says, very slowly, “Flayn has a major Crest of Cethleann. Doesn’t she? And Linhardt—”

“Has a minor Crest.” Byleth pauses. “Do you think…”

“It’s possible their Crests are the reason they were targeted,” Edelgard says, turning away to pace back and forth. Hubert stands still, hands clasped behind his back. “But this is worrying… they might target others like Ferdinand or Bernadetta, who bear Crests of the other Saints… Shall we look for them now?” she blurts out, eyes sparkling in obvious excitement.

“And skip class?” Hubert drily remarks.

“Hubert, even you must agree searching for our possibly-kidnapped classmates is more important than listening to Professor Hanneman first thing in the morning,” Edelgard argues. “Don’t you think, Byleth?”

They find the rest of their classmates easily enough, most of them having been on the way to the classroom already and Caspar and Petra in the training grounds, but no Linhardt. They split up to search his most frequented spots, but he’s not in the fishing pond or the entrance hall, and both the sweet buns in his dorm and the notes in the library are as undisturbed as they had been earlier. By the end of it, the bell has rung and gone, and in between his increasingly panicked thoughts, Byleth has the fleeting realization that Professor Hanneman is probably losing his mind over half the Black Eagles skipping class right now.

They reconvene in the entrance hall to share information, but no one’s seen Linhardt since yesterday. Edelgard hasn’t stopped muttering under her breath, Ferdinand is bouncing his knee five times per second, but Caspar is the worst among them—he paces restlessly for all of thirty seconds before he yells in frustration and punches a table. “Where can he _be?_ ” he shouts. “We’ve searched everywhere possible, haven’t we? Why can’t we _find him?_ ”

No one answers; the silence hangs heavy over their heads like a thick blanket of fog. Byleth hears Dorothea gently murmur for him to sit down, but he doesn’t turn to look—he doesn’t want to see the fear undoubtedly written on Caspar’s face. Then Edelgard stands from where she had been perched at the edge of a table. “One more time,” she says. “Let’s search again. Everywhere, this time, as _thoroughly_ as possible.”

“W-What if a teacher sees us?” Bernadetta squeaks. “I mean, w-we’re supposed to be in class right now… and really, if we tell one of the professors about this, w-won’t they be able to help out?”

It’s admittedly a good plan they had avoided mostly out of instinct—no student cutting class would ever willingly seek a teacher out, after all—but before they can discuss it more, the doors to the entrance hall swing open. Petra jumps back as if to defend herself, Hubert’s hand immediately goes to the tome under his arm, and Byleth feels the Creator Sword hum in response—but it’s just another student, looking around as if lost. “Ashe?” Caspar calls.

The student—right, Ashe, he’s probably the only other non-Black-Eagles student Byleth knows the name of—perks up at his name and jogs over to them. “Caspar!” he greets; then, as an obvious afterthought, “And, um, everyone—are you all skipping class or something?”

Edelgard nods. “It’s an urgent matter,” she says, at Ashe’s startled expression. “Have you seen Linhardt around since this morning? Or even last night?”

Ashe frowns. “Last night? He was in the library, wasn’t he? I went up there late to grab something I forgot and he was studying—”

“What time?”

“Er, I-I don’t know exactly, but probably around midnight,” Ashe stammers. “The candles were all out. He was using fire magic as a light, I remember.”

Byleth leans forward at the same time Caspar grabs Ashe’s wrist. “Who else was there?” Caspar asks—shouts, really.

Ashe shrinks back. “Um, I don’t… oh, well, it was just Tomas inside,” he says, “but when I went back out I hid behind a pillar because I heard footsteps approaching, and when they stepped into the moonlight it was—” He swallows. “Professor Jeritza, I think.”

Byleth’s blood runs cold.

He had never really gotten to know Professor Jeritza very well. They rarely saw each other outside of impersonal classes and seminars, and the few times Jeritza ate with the rest of the faculty and Knights, he kept to himself and left as soon as someone tried to bring him into the conversation. Had there been something off about him? Byleth can’t remember, or doesn’t know in the first place, because he had never even tried to analyze the other man better—if he had done something, if he had noticed sooner, if he had just _tried—_

“But that reminds me, I’m not here for nothing,” Ashe hurries to say. “Have any of you seen Professor Manuela? She’s supposed to have a class with us, but we got worried when she didn’t show up for over ten minutes…”

Caspar tugs his wrist, nearly dragging Ashe along with overwhelming strength. “Let’s look for them together!”

“B-But where—”

“The Knights’ dormitory,” Petra suggests, already moving towards its general direction, Edelgard following close behind. “If I were a teacher hiding something, I would be using my room to do so, yes? And,” she says, voice low, “it is one of the few places we did not search in.”

Fortunately, the dormitories aren’t far; _un_ fortunately, the gate is locked when they arrive. Hubert and Dorothea have a go at it with their magic, but Hubert sniffs in disdain and declares it magic-resistant, which explains the dark feeling Byleth’s getting from such a tiny thing. Then Ashe murmurs “excuse me,” and steps towards the lock, slipping something out of his pocket. It only takes another few seconds before the lock _clicks_ and the gates swing open, almost invitingly.

“Awesome,” Caspar gawks. “Where’d you learn _that,_ Ashe?”

Ashe colors. “Um, i-it’s just something you pick up after a while—but come on, let’s hurry! Someone’s bound to notice we broke in!”

Once inside, they’re forced to split up in smaller groups to avoid being noticed by the Knights, and Byleth gets grouped with Caspar and Ashe. It’s a good thing Byleth knows almost everyone by face if not by name in here, though, because all they do when they see him is smile and wave—evidently non-faculty members don’t know the class schedules. Byleth has to keep Caspar from storming his way through the dorms, but eventually they do find Jeritza’s room, the lock of which Ashe easily picks open again. _A useful skill,_ Byleth vaguely notes. _Would certainly be helpful on the battlefield, too._

That thought vanishes when he sees a body slumped on the floor of the room, blood pooling beneath it.

His first thought is: _This is my fault. I’m the one who let Linhardt stay in the library late when I should have stayed with him or convinced him to go back to his room, I’m the one who didn’t notice something strange about Professor Jeritza right away, I’m the one who did this, this is my fault—_

His second thought is, shamefully enough: _Oh, thank goodness,_ because Caspar gets on his knees and gently flips the body over to reveal a clearly breathing Professor Manuela. “She’s alive,” Caspar says, the words rushing out of him in a heavy, relieved breath. “But shit, this wound looks bad—what, what do we do—”

“Stop the bleeding!” Ashe yelps, kneeling down beside Caspar to fuss over Manuela. “We need to get her somewhere safer, like the infirmary—but I-I don’t think I can carry her—”

“Caspar,” Byleth says, somewhat surprised when both immediately look up at him like his words had been an order, “go get our classmates, try explaining the situation. I can—” He swallows. “Let me try healing her.”

Caspar steels his jaw and nods, racing out of the room without question; Ashe stares at Byleth, looking almost intimidated. “Um, B-Byleth…” He clears his throat and shuffles over to make space for Byleth to crouch down. “You know faith magic? You don’t look the type.”

“I’ve only begun to learn.” As Byleth wills his hands to steady above Manuela’s wound, he realizes this is probably the first real conversation he’s had with Ashe. All he really knows about him is that he’s from the Blue Lions House and good friends with Caspar… and, well, apparently a good lockpick. That’s about it. “Where are the rest of your classmates?”

“Ah!” Ashe’s hands fly to his mouth. “I… I forgot to tell them about this, I got so caught up… but it’d be wasting too much time if I left to go look for them now, even for His Highness…”

Byleth focuses on the wound as Ashe murmurs to himself, and winces when he simultaneously feels the magic flow out from his palms and the sharp, choking pain in his torso. _A stab wound?_ It feels like one, certainly, but not with any regular sword or lance, nor is the material made out of any old iron or steel, either. It doesn’t seem to be infected yet, but it’s reminiscent of the wound Miklan had left on Byleth after he’d scratched him with the Lance of Ruin, right before transforming into a demonic beast. Perhaps…? No, Jeritza couldn’t be in possession of a Hero’s Relic. But then this wound…

The pain recedes the longer he heals, and finally Byleth pulls his hands away, fighting back the immediate wave of dizziness that threatens to overpower him as soon as he lets go of his concentration. “You did it!” Ashe exclaims, and Byleth’s surprised to find that it’s true; Manuela’s breathing is more even now, and though his beginner’s healing has left a nastier-looking scar than the norm, at least it’s closed up. “You really can do anything, huh, a mercenary and a healer in one…”

“Um, I don’t know about that,” Byleth demurs, but just then the door swings open once more, and suddenly Dorothea is practically collapsing by Manuela’s side, her hands glowing with the faith magic she so dislikes.

Edelgard takes a step forward, then takes several steps back when she sees Manuela. “Is—Is she alright? You mentioned she was bleeding…”

“Yeah, but Byleth healed her up!” Ashe says, hurrying to his feet. “She still definitely needs rest, though, preferably in her own infirmary—”

“Wait,” Hubert says, just as Ferdinand moves to help Caspar carry her up, “look at her hand—she appears to be pointing at something. That bookshelf?”

Petra helps Byleth push it out of the way, and they both nearly fall through the stone passageway hidden behind it. “A secret entrance, I see,” Hubert muses—he steps closer, gloved hands skimming the edges of the entrance, then nods. “Unguarded. It’s safe to say this is where the culprit must be—”

“G-Guys?” Bernadetta whimpers, clinging to the end of Edelgard’s cape. “D-Do you hear something?”

The room goes deadly quiet, and only then does Byleth hear it—footsteps from outside, rapidly approaching.

Everyone hisses and mutters and curses under their breaths, rushing to hide behind the bed or under the desk; Byleth tries to make himself as small as possible behind a potted plant. Petra, ever the smart one, reaches out to close the door, but trips over Caspar’s foot at the last second and accidentally shoves the door to _smack_ against someone at full force. “ _Oh!_ What is the meaning of this!” a very familiar voice crows.

Edelgard blinks from where she’s curled beneath the table. “Professor Hanneman?”

Professor Hanneman himself pushes the door back open, rubbing his quickly-reddening nose and scowling furiously. “So _this_ is where you delinquents all ran off to? I must say, I am _extremely_ disappointed in your lack of discipline, when all of you have shown great potential to _not_ be troublemakers thus far—is that Manuela!”

“Glad you noticed,” Hubert grumbles. Dorothea elbows him, the two of them cramped together in the small space between the bed and the wall.

“Yes, we found her injured and bleeding here in Professor Jeritza’s room,” Edelgard says, jumping to her feet while seizing the chance to turn the conversation around. “We need to get her to the infirmary. Professor Hanneman, let’s carry her there together—I’ll explain everything on the way, I promise.”

Hanneman blinks owlishly for a moment, his monocle only adding to the similarities, before he hurriedly nods and bends down to gather Manuela’s limp body in his shaking arms. “Yes, yes, absolutely, oh, you had _better_ explain what is going on, young lady, can you imagine the stages of shock I went through when I entered the classroom and found it _near empty—_ ”

Edelgard shoots them an apologetic look as she ushers Hanneman out the room. “Be careful,” she manages, then kicks the door shut behind her.

For a moment, none of them do anything—then Ashe coughs and scrambles out of the bed, having somehow moved quickly enough to hide under the blankets. “W-What do we do?”

“Did you just get in Professor Jeritza’s bed?” Caspar gapes.

“It’s best to explore that passageway with the time Lady Edelgard has so generously given us,” Hubert says, squirming out of the tight space. “Come, let us move before—will you stop kicking me!”

Dorothea smiles sweetly, her foot raised halfway in another kick. “Well, Hubie, maybe if _you_ quit kicking _me—_ ”

“Should we not call for the Knights? Or at least Professor Jeralt?” Ferdinand frets, Bernadetta at his sleeve. “We have all sparred against Professor Jeritza during practice, and I am almost certain he had still been holding back when he won in every single round—”

“We can’t waste any more time!” Caspar argues, already stomping over to the passageway, Ashe weakly trying to pull him back in place. “What if they’ve already brought Flayn and L-Linhardt somewhere else while we were sitting up here? Come on, we gotta hurry!”

“I hate to say it, but I agree with him for once,” Hubert sighs.

“What if Ferdinand and Bernadetta will go call for the professor?” Petra suggests. “The rest of us can go ahead to save time, and I am sure Professor Jeralt will be of great help.”

Byleth worries at his lower lip, and stops when he realizes he’s been doing it long enough for the skin to start bleeding. “Father has a class with the Golden Deer right now. They might be good backup.”

Ferdinand hurries off with Bernadetta at his heels, leaving only the six of them left—hardly a reassuring number of allies against an unknown opponent in an unknown location. Byleth doesn’t even know what Ashe _does._ But Caspar is already barreling down the stairs in the passage, Dorothea snapping her fingers in the way she practices her magic before every battle, and, well.

Byleth thinks about those sweet buns, growing cold. Those notes, probably getting swept up into the lost-and-found box.

He takes a deep breath, and brings up the rear.

The underground chamber is pungent. It’s also wide, dark, and filled with contraptions that scream dark magic, but above all else it _stinks_ of the sewers.

And it’s filled with an unbelievable amount of soldiers Byleth can’t believe the monastery hadn’t noticed.

“Our objective is to find Flayn and Linhardt, not to engage in battle with that strange knight,” Hubert reminds them. The passageway had taken them to the end of a long, winding corridor, at least from what Byleth can see—the candles and oil lamps do little to light up the way. “Let us hope we are not too late.”

Caspar grinds his teeth. “I’m gonna punch his face in.”

“Did you hear a _word_ of what I just said.”

“I’m gonna punch him real hard.”

If Byleth’s being honest, he wants to do the same. Before this, he had only met the supposed Death Knight once, in the Holy Mausoleum during the Rite of Rebirth—they had all given him a wide berth, using the various structures in the mausoleum to their advantage, but Byleth didn’t need to spar with the knight to see the sharp gleam of his scythe. He’s almost certain that’s the weapon that had injured Manuela, too. There’s absolutely no way they would be able to stand up to him, together or not.

But Byleth thinks about that skull mask, those glowing red eyes, that scythe glinting in the moonlight as the knight lifts it over Linhardt’s unprotected back—

He grips the Creator Sword harder, feels it hum as if in agreement.

The odd floor tile at the corner turns out to be some sort of warp panel, as Hubert tells them—Dorothea tests it out and disappears without so much as a sound, and Petra follows in a panic, despite Hubert trying to tell her Dorothea is fine. They don’t return, but a few seconds later they hear the crack-and-sizzle of thunder frying armor, which is reassuring enough by itself. Further along the corridor are more men, and Byleth doesn’t need more light to know the enemies outnumber the four of them far more than even he had expected.

Ashe swallows. He’s clutching a bow in hand, but his quiver of arrows is only half-full. “Do you… Do you think we should wait for backup?”

“No time, remember?” Caspar stretches his arms, bounces on the heels of his feet. He had only brought his axe before they went down here, but Byleth knows he’s been getting better at unarmed combat. “Let’s blast through them quick! We’ve got the element of surprise on our side!”

“No, there are too many of them—surprise won’t matter with such numbers.” Hubert frowns. “It’s best to pick them off one at a time, by luring them nearer and using the shadows to our advantage.” He turns to the nearest oil lamps, and without bothering to ask the rest of them, waves his hand. The lights flicker and die in the next breath, plunging them in the dark. “You. Ashe.”

Ashe squeaks. “Y-Yes?”

“Can you still aim? An arrow would be less conspicuous than my magic, I believe.”

There’s practically no light to see by, but Ashe still says, “Yes, I can,” as if it’s nothing. Byleth sees the outline of his person turn around and take aim, nocking an arrow with practiced ease—

 _Zing_ —one of the soldiers curses and stumbles, but Hubert waves his hand again and a foul-smelling miasma envelops the man, cutting off his scream. When the miasma fades, the body is motionless on the floor. “Dark magic,” Hubert says, the glint of his golden eyes catching Byleth’s curious gaze. “It suits me far more than reason or faith, fittingly enough.”

The work, while effective, is slow-going—they take down the soldiers one or two at a time, Ashe’s excellent night vision always seeking out the men further from the rest to target and Hubert’s dark magic perfect for a silent kill. But Caspar is getting more and more restless with every soldier that goes down, and Byleth’s starting to feel the same—he can’t use the Creator Sword even for long-range, because lengthening it leads to a telltale _shing_ sound, and the only thing he knows about reason magic is its history, courtesy of the first chapter of their textbook. It isn’t as if he can cast faulty fireballs at will, after all. Not for the first time, he wishes he had asked Linhardt for help last night—maybe that would have changed things, maybe—

He squeezes his eyes shut hard enough to see stars. _Don’t think. Don’t get distracted. Focus, focus, focus._

They finally clear out the wider area the corridor led to, and Ashe gets to work on the locked gate barring the way. “Amazing someone thought to construct such a vast underground chamber,” Hubert muses. With no immediate enemy in sight, he’s summoned a small tongue of flame to serve as light, though it hovers beside his head like a pet bird instead of confined to the top of his palm. “And with old, elaborate magic woven into the structure… I wonder what this place’s original purpose was, before these heathens had their way with it.”

“Looks like a dungeon, doesn’t it? Got all these prison bars and stuff,” Caspar says.

Ashe almost drops the sharp pin in his hand. “You mean I’m picking a prison gate open?”

“An _ancient_ prison gate,” Caspar says. “That’s kinda cool. You’re probably making this place’s jailkeepers roll in their graves. But let’s hurry already!”

“Alright, alright, no need to shout,” Ashe placates, pushing the gates open, “let’s go—”

Hubert surges forward, tackling Ashe to the ground. Caspar freezes. Byleth stares.

The noxious cloud of miasma passes harmlessly overhead.

Byleth doesn’t wait for another to arrive—he charges forward, the Creator Sword snapping at the ready and lashing out at the nearest body it finds. There’s a pained cry before the sound of the blade eating into flesh scrapes at Byleth’s ears, but Byleth barely gets to feel some sick satisfaction before steel rings right next to his ear—then a yell as Caspar comes rushing over, his axe clanging against a sword. Arrows and dark magic alike fly above them, crashing into the quickly-advancing soldiers. Briefly, Byleth mourns the loss of whatever element of surprise they still had.

For once, the narrow corridors work to their advantage—Byleth and Caspar crowd around the gate, fighting off the soldiers one and two at a time while Hubert and Ashe pick off the ones further behind. But they’re tiring fast, fighting off so many enemies with so few of them, and Byleth doesn’t hesitate to reach for the dizzying sensation of a Divine Pulse when he sees toxic fumes encircle a screaming Ashe, the poison leaking into his mouth and ears and eyes—

He settles back into his skin ten seconds earlier, just enough time to break away from his position and get close enough for the Creator Sword to slice the dark mage’s head in half before he can finish casting his spell. Byleth turns away from the gore before he can get distracted—there are more enemies to take care of, and he’s suddenly aware of how many more times he can turn time back. _Two—_ only two more mistakes he can allow himself.

No—he shouldn’t be allowing himself any mistakes in the first place.

Byleth doesn’t know how long it goes on, but when Ashe’s last arrow buries itself between a man’s eyes and he topples to the ground, no one takes his place. The dungeon is silent again, the only noises their collective panting and gasping for breath and the whisper of the torches mounted on the walls. Caspar reaches up to wipe blood off his forehead, only succeeding in smearing it further across his face; Hubert’s arms tremble just slightly when he lowers them to his side. “Looks clear,” Byleth finally says. “Let’s keep moving.”

They trek through the hallway without bothering to muffle their footsteps or extinguish the lights around them anymore—everyone in the dungeon must have heard their skirmish, if there are still any other soldiers around. The knight—Jeritza— _whoever_ still hasn’t bothered to show his face since his twisted greeting at the entrance of the passageway.

It gets dimmer as they progress, the gap between torches getting longer and longer until the darkness remains entirely uninterrupted. Ashe and Hubert lead the way this time, their night vision on par with nocturnal animals with how far they seem to be able to see, until they finally run into what looks like another gate. “Should we really open this one up?” Ashe mumbles. “I mean, what happened last time…”

Hubert frowns. “There are no other branching paths from here. This door seems important, if it’s situated so deep inside the dungeon.”

“Yeah? Maybe it’s a prison cell for top-quality prisoners,” Caspar grumbles. “Come on, Ashe, we’re here. We’ll back you up if something happens.”

“Maybe we should wait for Dorothea and Petra?” Ashe meekly suggests, but he’s already got the hairpin out of his pocket. Even after all the locks it’s been through, it looks perfectly fine, as if newly-bought. “I’ve been wondering where they’ve gone. It’s not like we can ask where they are, and there’s no telling where that warp panel brought them…”

Hubert crosses his arms. “If this is truly an ancient dungeon, there are bound to be traps set all over the place. We can only hope they haven’t activated any.”

“Dude,” Caspar says, “maybe don’t say that.”

Ashe works quickly, but the lock looks more elaborate than the rest of the gates they’ve come across, and it doesn’t pop open as easily either. Caspar paces restlessly, thankfully not punching any walls, while Hubert stands, staring into the distance, as if waiting for something (Edelgard, most probably). But there’s a terrible feeling curdling in Byleth’s stomach, which he knows isn’t his breakfast—he’d been hoping to just sneak a sweet bun off Linhardt’s plate when he wasn’t looking, but that plan seems to have been dashed to pieces…

He swallows. _Focus, focus, focus._ The knight, Jeritza—he still hasn’t shown up, and as much as Byleth detests the sight of the man, he’s getting sick of his absence. He had made such a big show of fighting against them, hadn’t he, so where is he? He’s the culprit behind this entire mess, isn’t he, so where is he? _I almost want him to show up so I can slice his head off, so where is he—_

The lock clicks. “There,” Ashe whispers, “now let’s be careful—”

Something moves. Byleth follows.

The Creator Sword seems to recoil from the scythe that descends on them, but Byleth has no choice—the curved blade of that scythe hisses against his own sword, and they only break free from each other when the scythe pushes Byleth back and he stumbles, almost falling on top of Ashe. “B-Byleth! Are you—”

“Move,” Byleth wheezes, moving the both of them just in time to get away from a flash of dark magic from the mage standing a few ways behind Jeritza, unnervingly motionless. Ashe yelps and raises his bow on reflex, but falters—his quiver is empty, and they hardly have any weapons to spare between the four of them. There’s no time to think when a cavalryman rushes them, and Byleth has to drag the both of them to the side, narrowly avoiding getting trampled by the horse.

Ashe is still shaking. “S-Sorry,” he stammers, “I don’t—I didn’t—”

Byleth unsheathes his knife from its leather strap on the inside of his coat and hands it to Ashe, handle first. “It’s not much. But it’s something.”

“Oh,” Ashe breathes. He takes the knife, his grip shifting around it almost imperceptibly—but Byleth sees it, the way his hand fits around the handle in a way that tells him that hand has held its fair share of knives. “Yes. Thank you.”

They move again. Hubert’s arms are outstretched, palms smoking of dark magic as the cavalryman from earlier buckles and falls under the miasma, while the mage has a large gash from his shoulder stretching open all the way to his lower stomach, his guts practically spilling out of the wound—Caspar, his axe dripping with blood, charges straight for Jeritza, who only stares at him through that skull mask. “Where are they?” Caspar yells—“Give them back, you stupid—!”

“Caspar!” Ashe shouts—Hubert curses—Byleth moves, faster, _faster,_ but he’s too _slow_ and all he can see is Caspar’s lifeless body limp in Linhardt’s arms again—

The scythe moves, cuts the very air around it. Byleth reaches for a Divine Pulse—

Electricity arcs above them, like the whisper before a thunderstorm. It cracks against Jeritza’s scythe, sizzles and sparks, knocking it just off balance enough for Caspar to swerve to the side and avoid the blade, his axe cutting into Jeritza’s side. 

Jeritza doesn’t move from his spot, only brushes a hand against the shallow wound. “You are not the one I want,” he murmurs. And then he turns to look straight at Byleth.

There is a second, a very slow second, where Byleth turns around. There’s Ashe, crouched low on the floor with his knife in hand—Hubert, unmoving, a hand touching the magic tome at his side—Petra and Dorothea hurrying over from the corridor, the latter’s hands crackling with electricity—and when Byleth turns back around, he sees Caspar, axe ready again, eyes narrowed in concentration.

He does not want to see any of them die again today.

Byleth moves first, a second faster than Jeritza—the Creator Sword _clangs_ against his scythe, and Byleth turns to pull the sword back and aim for his legs, but Jeritza’s reflexes are unnaturally fast, and he lunges forward to knock Byleth off his feet, sending the both of them sprawling across the dusty dungeon floor. Jeritza’s elbow, heavy and armored, jabs into Byleth’s torso—Byleth gasps, shoves him off and snaps the sword back towards Jeritza’s neck, but his scythe intercepts it, tangling the segments up with each other. He tugs Byleth towards him with their joint weapons, letting go at the last second only to bring his scythe down, down—

Pain explodes across his chest. Byleth tries to scream, but only blood leaves his mouth, dribbling down his chin and throat and joining the crimson around his front. Jeritza stands over him, all gleaming black armor and gleaming sharp scythe, and he’s saying something—“Is that all?” and he turns away until Byleth only sees his back, absently flicks his wrist and then— _blood, so much blood,_ and Byleth can hear Ashe shouting Caspar’s name with a desperation he never wants to hear again—

He moves. The Creator Sword hisses as it bites into Jeritza’s leg, and he falters in his step towards a fallen Caspar, turning to look back down at Byleth again. He tilts his head, and Byleth thinks he must be saying something, but he doesn’t bother listening—he focuses everything he has on where the sword’s blade has sunk into Jeritza’s leg, thinks _hurt him, hurt him, kill him,_ and then—and then.

Something flashes before his eyes—a curving, curling tangle of glowing lines, snaking and shifting until they form a shape Byleth almost doesn’t recognize, from how different it looks when not in Linhardt’s pointy, slanted handwriting.

He blinks—and then energy _pulses_ through his arm, spreading through his chest, the Creator Sword buzzing with power. The Crest of Flames is gone, as if it had never been there. But Byleth looks down at his chest, sees the blood flow slow and stop, the wound slowly stitching itself up—and knows, somehow, that this is not the result of a messy Nosferatu spell.

Jeritza jerks his leg away from the sword, and Byleth lets him—when he stands, his chest still stings with pain, but it’s weak enough that he can move without difficulty. “Interesting,” Jeritza says, blandly. The blade of his scythe is one swing away from Caspar’s neck. “Well? Shall we repeat that, until it becomes too much to heal?”

Byleth moves. Moves and swings and lets the Creator Sword lash out at the scythe like the jaws of a snapping animal and _moves_ because it’s the only thing he can do, keep moving, keep Jeritza distracted long enough for Ashe to sneak past them and help Caspar up, for Hubert and Petra to slip into the room and come back out with bodies on their backs, long enough—Byleth moves—to catch a glance—he swings his sword, moves moves _moves—_ the fastest glimpse of dark green hair—

He feels it a microsecond before it happens—the hot sting of steel, warmth seeping out of him with each drop of blood, glowing red eyes. He feels it—but he doesn’t stop it, _can’t_ stop it, can’t move _fast enough,_ and then there’s pain blooming like a flower across his chest again.

Byleth falls. The scythe hovers over him, stained a scarlet so vivid he can see it even in the dark. _Well? Kill me,_ he wants to spit. _Why are you just standing there? Won’t you kill me already? Stay here and kill me and give them more time to get away—_

“ _You!_ ” a furious voice hisses—Byleth only barely manages to hear it over the ringing in his ears. It’s not a voice he recognizes, and it sounds altered, as if coming through the same sort of mask Jeritza is wearing. “What do you think you’re doing—you weren’t to so much as touch a hair on anyone else’s head but the girl’s!”

“He is not dead, is he?” Jeritza responds, perfectly monotonous. _Clank—_ Byleth sees the tip of the scythe rest right before his face, where one wrong move would cut his eyes out of their sockets.

“With all that blood he’s losing, he might as well be. Ridiculous.” The swish of fabric. “Hurry. The others will be back soon. Let us go.”

“He—”

“ _Leave_ him.”

His vision swims. He thinks he can hear Sothis screaming in the back of his head, but he has enough energy to keep her from rewinding time—because why _should he?_ They’re alright, they’re all alive, and that’s what’s important, that they’re fine, that they live…

Byleth lets his eyes fall closed.

_Music. Roses. The crack-sizzle of an incoming thunderstorm._

_Not… It’s not…_

“Dorothea?”

Byleth doesn’t open his eyes right away—he’s passed out from injuries more than enough times to know that opening his eyes right away is asking for a wave of dizziness. Instead he reaches out, touches Dorothea’s wrist hovering just above his numb chest. “Well, good morning to you,” Dorothea says. No one else’s voice is that musical or lilting. “Or good evening. Good midnight, actually. You’re an awful lot of work, aren’t you, Byleth?

“Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t apologize. You were very gallant, sacrificing yourself to give the rest of us time. And by _gallant,_ ” Dorothea sighs, “I mean _idiotic,_ albeit brave. What were you thinking?”

When the light behind his vision seems to be bearable enough, Byleth slowly cracks his eyes open—he squints against the orange glow on the walls for a moment, before realizing there’s barely even any light to see by, with it being midnight and all. They’re in the infirmary, that much he can tell, and Dorothea is sitting by his side, her hands positioned above his chest—the glow of healing magic seems to be the only thing keeping his internal organs from spilling out of him.

“I…” Byleth coughs, weakly—his chest aches a little, but at least blood doesn’t come out of his mouth, which is a fair improvement from last time. “I don’t know…”

“What a lie,” Sothis sniffs. She’s seated on the other side of the bed, crossing her arms and facing pointedly away from Byleth. “You know perfectly well what you were thinking, which was simultaneously _too much_ and _absolutely nothing at all._ ”

Dorothea shakes her head. “Well, thanks to you, we all made it out alright. Even Caspar’s wound looks mild compared to yours. And we found Flayn and Lin, too, so don’t worry about them.” She smiles, and Byleth’s surprised to find the only strain there is from exhaustion—everything else about it is perfectly genuine. “But the professor is going to get _so_ mad at you for not telling him first like Ferdie and Bernie did. They got lost in the warp panels, by the way—we had to fish them out after everything else. Definitely not my favorite day ever.”

Dorothea’s faith magic still isn’t the best, despite Professor Manuela’s best efforts—when she breaks away from the spell, panting with exertion, pain floods Byleth’s senses like a tidal wave—he gasps, chokes, reaches desperately for air that refuses to meet him, and only when the warmth returns does he find his lungs free of debris again. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry,” Dorothea whispers, leaning over him, stroking his hair back from his sweat-slick skin.

“It’s fine,” Byleth says—or tries to say, because the words get lost in his throat when he realizes this isn’t Dorothea’s magic. And how can it be, when she’s draping cool wet cloth over his forehead and busying herself with a tray of medical supplies—Byleth turns, just slightly, but finds he doesn’t even have to when the faith magic flows through his veins more naturally than anyone else’s healing does. Like hot tea, scattered sunshine. Library books.

“Linhardt,” he says instead.

Dark blue eyes look down on him from above, darker rings beneath them standing out on his pale skin. (Does he look paler than usual, or is that the lighting?) “Look at you,” Linhardt says, and his voice is so painfully familiar that Byleth’s chest twists in a pain he can’t blame on the scythe wound anymore. “Do you make it an effort to get injured in every fight you get into, Byleth?”

Byleth wants to look away, but at the same time he can’t take his eyes off Linhardt. Safe, breathing, _living_ Linhardt. “There was no other way.”

“Oh? Really? No other way but to get your heart nearly gouged out by some lunatic’s deformed lance?” Linhardt snaps, his usually-mild voice hissing like a stoked flame. “You—I saw you when they brought you in here, for a moment. All the ruckus woke me up. And then—all that blood—” He swallows, his hands stuttering over Byleth’s chest, and Byleth…

He knows how bad the wound had been, how deep it had gone inside. How much it had hurt. But he hadn’t seen exactly how much he had been bleeding, and—he remembers the last time he had let Linhardt see him injured and bloodied, the two of them slumped on that forest floor, _I didn’t want you to see—_

“I’m…” Byleth lifts his hand, heavy and weighed down by exhaustion as it is, and touches Linhardt’s wrist. It’s a passing touch, barely more than a breath, but to know Linhardt’s there, to be reminded he’s _safe_ and _found_ and _alive—_ Byleth sucks in a deep breath, almost doesn’t hear Linhardt do the same. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I just…”

“No, don’t talk,” Linhardt whispers. The bite in his voice is gone, leaving only a weary tenderness behind. He keeps the Heal spell up with one hand, using the other to brush his fingers against Byleth’s for the briefest of seconds. “Just rest, will you? And promise me this won’t have to happen again.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Okay. Promise.”

Linhardt smiles, small and soft and—Byleth breathes—alive. “Thank you.”

Byleth lies back, stares up at the ceiling and counts the seconds that pass until the Heal spell fades, leaving only a gentle, lingering warmth behind.

When next he wakes up, it’s to Father bringing him a breakfast of fish—the curtains are drawn open, shafts of sunlight resting across his face. “Morning,” he croaks.

Father sets the plates down on the nearby table so hard, a piece of meat falls off. “You,” Father says, very obviously on the brink of exploding, “have a _lot_ of explaining to do.”

Byleth stares forlornly at the fallen piece of meat.

“What else do you remember?”

“Mmh…” Linhardt rolls to lie on his side. Byleth’s glad he had the foresight to bring an old blanket for him today—he doubts the monastery staff would be very happy about washing grass stains out of the same two uniforms again and again. “Really, Byleth, I’ve said everything that needs saying. One second I was reading a book and the next I felt dizzy and passed out. I can even tell you which book it was, if you care.”

Byleth gives him a look. “What was it?”

“A biography of Saint Cethleann’s life. It wasn’t anything unique, I assure you.” Linhardt yawns, then sits up to sip his tea. “When I woke up, the first thing I had to do was heal Caspar, and then you. No rest for the victim, it looks.”

“Hm.” Byleth frowns. So had it been Jeritza, then? But Linhardt had been uninjured when they’d found him, at least according to their classmates, and even now he says he’d only gotten dizzy. So Jeritza couldn’t have knocked him out painlessly, could he? But how else—

“Byleth!”

Byleth looks up at Ferdinand hurrying over to him, Edelgard following more sedately behind. For once, Hubert isn’t around—or at least doesn’t let himself be seen. “How could you not have told us today is your day of birth?” Ferdinand exclaims. “I had to make do with what I already had in hand. Please, tell us next time!”

“He won’t need to, you already know when it is,” Edelgard tells him.

Ferdinand, smiling brightly, ignores her and presents a small but elaborately-wrapped gift box, which Byleth numbly takes. “Um… thank you. I appreciate it.”

He wonders if he sounds a little insincere, with how flat his voice always is, but Ferdinand’s grin only grows, and Byleth finds himself smiling back. “Next year, I shall certainly get you something better! I’ll have much more time to prepare then, after all. Ah,” he adds, spinning around to face a tired-looking Edelgard, “but! Despite the admittedly rushed nature of my present, I can assure you will still find it superior to Edelgard’s.”

Edelgard looks seconds away from rolling her eyes into the next dimension. “Please stop making everything a competition against me.” But she hands her own wrapped present over to Byleth with a smile anyway. “Sorry to have interrupted you two. Happy birthday, Byleth.”

When they leave, Linhardt peers curiously at the gifts, tugging at the ribbon on Ferdinand’s. “Well, that’s the third time in the past hour, isn’t it? How many gifts has it been?”

“Er…” Byleth hadn’t exactly been keeping track. The first one had been this morning at the training grounds, when he, Father, and Petra had been sparring together and Father had offhandedly greeted him a happy birthday. Petra had gasped, raced off to her room, and returned five minutes later with a hastily wrapped package (that turned out to be an assortment of snacks from Brigid, along with an exotic-looking pressed flower fit for a bookmark). Byleth hadn’t even known what she had been doing when she’d handed it to him—Father, obviously amused, had needed to prompt him into accepting it.

After that, word must have spread fairly quickly among the rest of them, because Byleth received flowers from Dimitri and tactics books from Claude, both of whom repeated their thanks for helping them out against the bandits all those months ago. Caspar shot out of his seat in the middle of Professor Hanneman’s lecture and greeted Byleth the loudest happy-birthday Byleth had ever heard; Bernadetta had timidly approached him after class and given him the scarf she had been working on beneath her table during classes.

Dorothea’s was the strangest, though—she caught him on his way to the kitchens and, after a chime of happy birthday, offered to take over his cooking duty for today as her gift to him. “And here,” she’d added, dropping two teabags of Angelica tea in his hand, “I don’t really like these, but I know you know someone who does.”

So when Linhardt had given him a book on old magic, Byleth had taken the chance to ask him to tea again.

It’s actually rather convenient. His chest wounds had just healed up after two days of bedrest—Professor Manuela had scolded him for getting himself slashed twice in the same spot, and it had taken him a while to remember the pain of the first injury had only been numbed, not completely healed. So Byleth had figured that if anyone would know why his Crest had done that, it would be Linhardt.

But they’d gotten sidetracked after Linhardt had started talking about the book he’d given, all about ancient magic lost to time and the incantations (“Can you believe, they’re complex enough to require entire incantations?”) needed to cast them stuck in a language indecipherable and left untranslated for centuries. Then Byleth had asked how Linhardt had gotten himself kidnapped, and, well, he’d pretty much forgotten the entire reason for this.

“You’ve studied me, right?”

Linhardt’s hand jerks from where he had been setting his cup down. Tea sloshes out of the cup and onto the grass. “E-Excuse me?”

“Studied me.” Byleth gives him an odd look. “My Crest. The Creator Sword.”

“ _Oh._ Right.” Linhardt sighs. “Yes, I have. But I’m not finished, of course. Why, Byleth, are you offering your time?”

“Um, no. Maybe. It depends.” Byleth toys with the hem of his coat for a moment. “When we were down there, in the dungeon, the Death Knight—Professor Jeritza—hurt me.” He can still remember it—the memory of his blood staining his skin, the scythe tearing his chest open like he were little more than a slaughtered animal. Jeritza turning away from him. Ashe crying Caspar’s name.

Linhardt turns away. “I’m aware.”

“But when I swung out, and my sword—” Byleth frowns. He has no idea how he’s supposed to describe what had happened, and judging by the confused look Linhardt is giving him, he doubts Linhardt will understand if he tried to explain. “Anyway, I managed to get my sword into his leg. And I thought—I reached for—”

“Was it Nosferatu?” Linhardt interrupts, leaning forward. “I could feel it, when I was healing you—dark magic was practically swimming in your veins. I almost thought it was some kind of terminal disease or something until I realized what it was. Though it’s known that many dark mages die early from overuse of self-debilitating magic, so I suppose we can’t disregard that possibility.” He pauses. “But of course, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Byleth smiles. (The feeling is familiar now—an involuntary tugging sensation at the corners of his lips, one he no longer tries to fight.) “Yes, it was Nosferatu. I thought—because last time, it worked when I was in direct contact with an enemy, but this time we were connected via the sword… and then when I tried it, as a desperate measure…”

_Hurt him. Hurt him. Kill him._

“The Crest of Flames,” he murmurs. Belatedly, he realizes his hand has found its way to rest over his chest, right where the wound had been. “It appeared in the air, and then I felt this power through me, like how Nosferatu felt—and then my wound closed up a little and stopped hurting. At least for a while.”

Linhardt leans back, expression shifting into that thoughtful excitement Byleth’s grown well accustomed to. “Interesting. So the manifestation of your Crest seems to heal you during combat, does it? Perhaps it operates similarly to Nosferatu, seeing as you used the two in tandem. I’m assuming this is the first time it manifested for you, then? Maybe…”

Byleth sips his tea and listens. Plenty of it flies over his head, and thinking about it now, he doesn’t think he even cares overly much about his Crest and how it manifests.

But Linhardt’s eyes are alight with excitement, his smile infectious, his voice dipping and rising in tune to his words, and—well, if Byleth gets any information out of him, that’s just a bonus.

“Happy birthday, kid.”

Byleth stares. Stares. And stares. Then he takes the fishing rod into his hands, more gently than he’s ever handled anything else before. “T… Thank you.”

Father laughs, clapping his back and handing him a bag with parts of it poking out suspiciously. “Here, the rest of the mercs got you a bunch of random things too. Don’t drink all five beer bottles in one go, will you?”

“I won’t.” Beer isn’t much to Byleth’s taste, though he’s seen how much Father and the rest of the mercenaries can drink in just a night. He’ll probably give them to Professor Manuela on her birthday, whenever that may be, but he smiles down at the bag all the same. “Father?”

“Yeah?”

“When was Mother’s birthday?”

Silence, for a while—then Father sighs, love and exhaustion mixed in that one heavy breath. “Yesterday. Day before yours.”

“Oh.”

“She planned it herself. Said she wanted to make it harder on me to plan two birthday parties one after the other, but I know she just wanted to feel closer to you.” Father doesn’t look at him when he speaks, instead staring down at the tombstone, the etched words faded but legible. “I meant to tell you, but you were still in bedrest. Then it just slipped my mind. Never had to tell you before we came here, after all.”

“It’s okay.” Byleth crouches down, traces the engravings on the tombstone, dusty as it is. For a moment, he wonders what Mother would say, if she were here right now. Would she greet him a happy birthday? Hug him and tell him how much she loves him? Would she teach him faith magic, or help him during cooking duty, or tell him the names of the flowers in the greenhouse?

He wishes he could, at least, remember what she sounded like. Her voice, her laugh—at least then, he could imagine her speaking to him. But he has no memory to draw the facade of her voice from, and the night is silent all around them.

The next morning, Byleth lays the most colorful flowers he could find in the greenhouse on Mother’s grave. He stays there a little longer than he’d intended, listening to the birdsong and watching the sun come up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ashe said Hit +20 rights  
> byleth's default/"canon" birthday is september 20th btw! implied by the dates on jeralt's diary
> 
> next chapter: the dorogrid paralogue


	8. wyvern moon (1) — “do you want to be?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ingrid’s pegasus hates Byleth.
> 
> Which is great. Just great, really. It’s not like Byleth cares about what some flying horse thinks of him. So what if it glared at him when he had made eye contact with it before the battle had started and it had brushed him off when Ingrid let him offer it an apple? It’s not like it’s a big deal, after all…
> 
> Who is he kidding. He wants to pet it. He wants to pet the pegasus so bad it physically hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[i’ve been sleeping with these thoughts, i’ve been contemplating singing them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRIx1CP0Lrk) _
> 
> not much happens in this zzz also sorry for the abundance of fight scenes once again :/  
> also note for some minor dorothea/ingrid in here! (can be interpreted as one-sided or not)

“Professor!” A smile. “Thank you so very much for saving me!”

Flayn had taken a little longer to wake up than Byleth, Linhardt, and the strange Monica girl who’s always hanging around Edelgard and Hubert. She takes a little longer to have enough strength to move, too—when she finally does, she still looks paler than usual, and she’s terribly prone to falling asleep in the middle of just about anything.

The way she _runs_ when she sees Father (and by extension, Byleth) looks nothing short of a full recovery, though.

Father blinks down at her. “Oh, uh… it was nothing, really. All I did was carry you back after Byleth here did all the work, you know.” He smacks Byleth’s back with a force that may be excessive for others but just right for the both of them. “You sure you should be up and about already, though? You were the worst one out among the rest of them.”

Flayn nods, still smiling brightly. “I had woken up when they brought Linhardt in! But—that was what I wanted to speak to you two about, aside from a thank-you,” she murmurs, clutching her hands over her chest. “He was terribly hurt, not physically, but the dark magic in him was just awful… If it weren’t for his healing Crest, he wouldn’t have lasted longer than he did.”

“Dark magic?” Byleth repeats. Linhardt hadn’t mentioned a thing about this.

“Yes! Old magic, so archaic I wouldn’t know about it if I weren’t—” Flayn falters. “If I weren’t so, ah, disciplined with my studies… In any case, I had to expend energy casting Heal spells whenever that Death Knight wasn’t looking. It was easier for my major Crest to hold the darkness at bay until Professor Manuela could perform the proper magic.”

Father turns to Byleth. “Know anything? You’ve been studying magic pretty often these days.”

“No, but—” The image of the book Linhardt had given him just the other day comes to mind. Byleth frowns. He’s flipped through it a few times and can’t remember anything that resembles such potent dark magic, but maybe… “Flayn, what do you think about studying with us?”

“What?” Flayn squeaks. “Are you perhaps inviting me to join your class? Why, Byleth—”

“Oh, no. I just meant in your free time. Besides, I’m not the professor.” Byleth gives Father a pointed look, but Father just shrugs. “But it would be good to read up on what this dark magic was. It might give us some clue as to who kidnapped you.”

“Ah!” Flayn claps her hands together. “That’s true! Let us start right awa—”

Byleth hears the thundering footsteps before he sees Seteth practically fly out from around the corridor. “ _Flayn!_ There you are!” He nearly trips over himself hurrying over to a disgruntled Flayn’s side, then seems to catch sight of Father and Byleth at the last minute and inclines his head in a shallow bow. “Professor Jeralt, Byleth… I never did get to properly thank the two of you.”

Father shrugs again. It’s obvious he wants to leave soon, though Byleth’s not sure if it’s because he wants to go to the dining hall before lunch runs out or if it’s because he’s just uncomfortable. Or both. “No need. Flayn did the thanking for you.”

“Still, I must extend my gratitude to you,” Seteth demurs, giving them one of his rare smiles. “I cannot begin to express my gratitude for all you have done. After everything…” He trails off, then shakes his head. “Flayn and I have agreed to stay in the monastery rather than hiding elsewhere. But I still fear for her safety, so I—must trust you to help her, when I inevitably will not be there to.”

Flayn looks up at him, her brow furrowing. “Brother, must you spring such serious talk upon us now?”

Father snorts in amusement. “Come on. You know you don’t need to _tell_ us to help, right? Byleth here just offered to study that magic Flayn said their attacker was using.”

“I can cast dark magic,” Byleth adds, carefully leaving out how Nosferatu isn’t even entirely dark magic, and that it’s pretty much the only spell he can cast. “It’d be good to learn more.”

Seteth blanches, and Byleth wonders if dark magic has that bad a reputation. “Very well. Thank you, again, for everything you’ve done. I can assist in finding the books you need, if you wish.”

They have lunch together. Professor Manuela grouses about the stab wound in her gut and swears to get her revenge on the Death Knight someday, which doesn’t sound at all safe. Alois regales them with an old story of Father drinking more than half of the monastery’s total funds at the local bar (which Father vehemently denies, only to later clarify he had, in fact, drained the bar of all its available drinks). Shamir and Gilbert have a serious discussion about the political structure of Fódlan but give up when Catherine starts stealing their food.

Byleth looks down at his plate, an obscure fish he’s never eaten before, and passes it over to a delighted Flayn. Their only mission for the month is the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion—nothing dangerous, nothing life-threatening. Nothing he has to worry about, for once.

Ingrid’s pegasus hates Byleth.

Which is great. Just great, really. It’s not like Byleth cares about what some flying horse thinks of him. So what if it glared at him when he had made eye contact with it before the battle had started and it had brushed him off when Ingrid let him offer it an apple? It’s not like it’s a big deal, after all…

Who is he kidding. He wants to pet it. He wants to pet the pegasus so bad it physically hurts.

Byleth’s never even spoken to Ingrid before Dorothea had dragged them all out to help her with this very unorthodox marriage proposal—the only thing he had known about her was that she was blonde, and that was really about it. Now he knows her name (at least for now), how she blushes every time Dorothea speaks to her, and, most important of all, the existence of her pegasus. Which is just unfair. It’s simply inconceivable that Byleth has never been able to see a pegasus up close until today, and the pegasus has to turn around and _hate him._

He sticks the Creator Sword into a rogue’s stomach, and sighs wistfully. Do all pegasi hate men? He terribly hopes this isn’t the case.

“Um, Byleth?” Ashe calls, just a few ways behind him. Byleth does away with another rogue before nearing him. “Are you alright? That looks like a bad wound.”

“Oh, this?” Byleth looks down at his arm. He supposes it looks bad, but it doesn’t really hurt. He barely even feels it—honestly, he’d forgotten it was there at all. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Ashe frowns. “If you’re sure…”

Ashe had been with Ingrid when Dorothea suggested looking into her suitor’s shady rumors, and just like last time, had been dragged along with the rest of the Black Eagles without telling his own classmates—this, Byleth finds, is mostly Caspar’s fault, as his habit of running into things without thinking seems to be rubbing off on Ashe. This time, though, his quiver of arrows is full, all of different make and material, and he has an axe slung across his back, bearing the heavy weapon like it weighs nothing. It’s a large difference from the unprepared Ashe Byleth had met last month, and his fighting style, honed by the streets rather than by noble tutors, is a refreshing change from the rest.

Byleth breaks off from his thoughts when another rogue comes running towards him, this one wielding a nasty-looking axe—he jumps out of the way and sends the Creator Sword lashing out to slash into the man’s back. His axe clatters to the ground, and Byleth wastes no time in plucking it off the spitting crater floor before another rogue can get to it first. “Here,” he says, handing it over to a surprised Ashe.

“Um, me? Are you sure?”

“I’m not great with axes. You obviously are.” Byleth points at the axe on his back, and Ashe makes a little _oh_ sound. “This looks like it’s been dipped in poison, though, so be careful.”

Ashe stares at him a little longer, than laughs softly, an odd sound to hear on the battlefield while they’re surrounded with dead bodies and flowing magma—but he takes the axe all the same, handling it with skilled ease. “Thank you. You seem to always be giving me weapons, Byleth.”

They forge through, cutting a path through the rogues to get to the merchant—Ingrid, Dorothea, and Petra had taken the southernmost route where the exit is fastest, while the rest of them had zeroed in on the merchant at the northeast corner constantly calling in more reinforcements for every rogue they kill. Byleth and Ashe had gotten separated from Caspar and Ferdinand earlier, but the craters had boiled and bubbled to life once they’d crossed over it, so going back for them had been declared a lost cause. Edelgard, Hubert, and Linhardt were further north.

Byleth’s thoughts linger on Linhardt’s name for a moment longer than usual. Then he shakes his head, and they drift lazily away.

As it turns out, the merchant is hardly a threat—by the time they get there, he’s already lying dead on the ground next to the healing tile he must have been standing on, though it’s now burnt beyond repair. A telling axe wound in his chest is all Byleth needs to know about how he died. The more pressing issue is the number of reinforcements that have managed to flood the battlefield while they were dealing with the rest of the rogues, now practically swarming the place like scurrying rats. Byleth dives straight into the melee; Ashe hangs back, already firing arrows into the crowd.

Byleth lets his reflexes take over, less swinging the Creator Sword around and more letting it do as it wishes. It sings and screams in time with the men it spills the blood of, and every hit makes it hum louder, pulse stronger in Byleth’s grip. He focuses on scanning the area, searching for— _there,_ a flash of white hair amidst volcanic-brown and fire-orange—dark violet magic churning a man’s organs inside-out not too far away.

But he can’t find—the Creator Sword cackles as it slices into a rogue’s chest—he can’t see—one of Ashe’s arrows speeds past, narrowly missing his face— _where is he, I don’t want him to fight, I promised—_

At the last second, he sees it—sparks of healing magic, Physic spells zipping all over the place, all originating from far back where the rogues are beginning to converge.

Byleth barely thinks about it before he races for Linhardt, stretching the Creator Sword to its limits and swinging it as far as he can to reach the nearest men, knocking them off their feet if only to save time. But they’re smarter than they look and don’t take the bait, instead aiming straight for where Linhardt is backing away, his hands glowing with faith magic useless in a fight. Byleth charges through what must be a half-dozen rogues, the Creator Sword sweeping around him, and skids to a stop just in front of a paralyzed Linhardt.

“Sorry I’m late,” he offers.

Linhardt says nothing, but he does cast Heal over Byleth’s arm, and the brief, grateful sensation he feels is enough of a response.

Byleth doesn’t even have time to say thank you, because the rogues are already closing in—the Creator Sword lashes out, more to keep them away than to actually kill any of the men. One of them dodges, makes a lunge for Byleth, and he strikes the man across the chest, but another one takes his place just as he falls—Byleth’s legs move on instinct, to get closer and attack more accurately, but he falls back when he sees movement from the corner of his eye and he cuts off the arm of a rogue right before he brings his sword down on Linhardt’s neck.

Here comes the real difficulty: Byleth cannot move. Too far and he leaves Linhardt unprotected. Too near and he leaves himself open to the rogues ganging up on him, as they’re already beginning to do—the smug sneers on their faces tell him they’ve figured out the same thing.

Byleth fights back a growl of frustration, although that may be the Creator Sword speaking through him, a concept he’d rather not explore right now—he wants to turn around and tell Linhardt to fight, to kill, to cut the men to pieces or burn them to ashes. He wants to say _the battlefield is no place for a bloodless fight,_ wants to say _you have to fight, you have to learn,_ but—

But. He thinks of pale hands, covered in blood—he thinks of the pain in that soft voice, shaking, muffled behind a locked room door.

Deep breaths. Deep thoughts. He and Sothis have been training—he knows he has a maximum limit of five Divine Pulses a day now, though he usually passes out by the fifth. Hubert and Edelgard are too preoccupied with the rest of the rogues to help, and Ashe—Byleth can’t even see him from here, he must be too far away to provide backup. But he’s used to fighting large groups of enemies—though never this many at once, he admits—and Linhardt can heal him if he gets injured. He just has to focus.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

It’s bearable at first—he takes out enemies closest to them and makes use of wide, sweeping arcs to keep the rest at bay. One of the rogues cuts into his side, and Byleth nearly topples onto his knees when he feels the poison snake its way into his veins—but then it’s gone as fast as it had come, and he looks up to see Linhardt with his palms open and glowing with faint green light, a new spell Byleth hasn’t seen before but can infer the purpose of well enough. He just barely manages a grateful nod before he has to parry another lance away from his neck, then leap back before an axe can hack him in two—then a sword coming from the left, which he ducks under while thrusting the Creator Sword into the man’s stomach, spraying his arm with blood—another from the right, another coming for Linhardt—

He takes out the swordsman aiming for Linhardt’s chest, but that leaves his back open to the sharp jab of a spear—Byleth coughs, feels blood spatter out onto the magma beneath him, turns around and strikes back. But his swing is sloppy and misses, and the man rips his spear out of his back, only to bury it even deeper in the same spot—Byleth _snarls,_ recognizes how a serrated spearhead feels like tearing inside of him—

Warmth—faith magic. He almost collapses from both pain and relief when the spear clatters out by itself, but the Heal spell abruptly disappears, and Byleth whirls around— _left him alone, I left him alone_ —extends the Creator Sword like a whip towards the rogue running straight for Linhardt but he’s too _slow, again, and I can’t, I promised, I need to…_

Something whistles past him. Byleth blinks, and the rogue is screaming, clawing at the arrow plunged into his right eye. Byleth blinks again, and the Creator Sword has sliced the man’s arm off, a second later than Byleth had been aiming for. The man falls.

“Linhardt!” Byleth hears—it’s Ashe, leaping deftly over the craters and coming to a stop in front of Linhardt and right beside Byleth. “Oh, and Byleth—so this is where you went, I thought I lost you—” He breaks off to swing his axe at another man, knocking his lance out of his hands, while Byleth stumbles just trying to get a clean hit on the rogue behind them. The man sidesteps his swing with such ease it’s irritating—Byleth moves again, but his arm is too heavy to lift, and a gleaming blade dripping with poison is coming closer, closer—

The rogue chokes, halts in place. Blood spurts out of the gash in his neck, and then out of his mouth. He falls. No one comes to take his place.

Ashe tucks a knife— _Byleth’s_ knife—back into his uniform. Then he turns around, and gasps in obvious shock. “You—your back! You’re hurt!”

“My back?” Byleth mumbles—then remembers the entire reason he can’t move as quickly as he likes, courtesy of that damned lance. Right. He’d thought the constant spilling wetness on his back is just a great amount of sweat. When he reaches back to touch the injury like an idiot, he almost topples over from the pain. “Oh. Yes. My back.”

Linhardt curses and is behind Byleth in another instant, his hands lighting up with faith magic. “I—I’m sorry,” he stammers, and even through the comforting warmth, Byleth can feel Linhardt’s hands shaking over him. _Fear. Guilt. Anger._ Byleth blinks. _Have I always been able to feel emotions the other way around?_ “I didn’t… When he came at me, I…”

When his Heal spell stutters to a stop, Byleth turns around and touches Linhardt’s wrist again, brushing their fingers together. “It’s okay,” Byleth tells him. “We’ll be fine.”

Linhardt tenses, swallows, looks down at his feet. But he doesn’t move away, and his hands still, at least for a moment.

Beside them, Ashe awkwardly clears his throat. “Do you two need some time alone, or…”

Byleth blinks. “Why would we?”

“Um, well—”

“I believe Edelgard and Hubert are in need of assistance,” Linhardt hurriedly says, his cheeks coloring, likely from all this heat and exertion. “Let’s go. Ashe, come closer, you look hurt.”

Ashe’s brows rise, and a little smile lifts the corners of his lips. “Thanks, Linhardt, but I’m really fine, you should save your magic for B—”

“ _Come here,_ ” Linhardt hisses, grabbing his arm and casting what seems to be the angriest Heal spell Byleth’s ever seen. Ashe squeaks and lets himself be dragged along.

Edelgard and Hubert do not, in fact, need their help—they had barely managed by themselves, but they’re mostly exhausted rather than injured. Heading southward, they meet back up with Caspar and Ferdinand, who had dealt with the enemy reinforcements that arrived from the other side, and Ferdinand is only too eager to let himself be healed by Byleth’s still-rudimentary faith magic when Linhardt is too tired to do so. The smaller cuts and bruises fade away painlessly, but Byleth still has a long way to go before he can heal anyone up as well as Linhardt or even Dorothea.

They reach the southeast exit just as Ingrid, Dorothea, and Petra do—Ashe runs up to Ingrid immediately, stroking her pegasus on its mane. Byleth looks away, and it’s _not_ because he’s jealous. “We’re almost through, Ingrid,” Dorothea chirps. Her hair looks singed and her palms are practically smoking from the thunder magic they’ve been hearing for the better part of an hour, but the genuine smile on her face never wavers. “I doubt that dastard suitor of yours knows about this alternate route, anyway, and it’s a short run back to the monastery from here.”

Ingrid’s determined expression softens into an unbelievably gentle smile—Byleth can see Edelgard blinking in mild confusion beside him. “Thank you, Dorothea,” she says, voice so low Byleth can barely hear her. “This… means more to me than you know.”

“Why, are you not telling me something?”

“No! I mean—I don’t know how to express—”

“I’m just teasing,” Dorothea laughs. Byleth doesn’t miss Ingrid’s smile growing, the pink high on her cheeks. “Come on, Ingrid, let’s get you home.”

Ingrid nods, tearing her gaze away to look down at her pegasus instead as she fiddles with the reins. “Right. Yes. Let’s—”

Her eyes widen, and she leaps off her mount to shove Dorothea out of the way of an arrow—she gasps as it sinks into her arm instead, but it’s still much better than when it had been a second away from Dorothea’s neck. They skid across the rocky terrain, nearly falling off the steep edge, but Ingrid’s pegasus neighs and hurries to stand above them and beat back another arrow that comes flying. Byleth turns— _reinforcements,_ coming from the exit they thought had been so safe. Edelgard and Ferdinand are already running towards them, meeting some cavalrymen in the middle, but the archers are still all the way at the back, too far to reach without passing by the other swordsmen guarding them.

Caspar and Petra rush ahead, brandishing their respective weapons—Byleth turns to see Linhardt and Dorothea bent over Ingrid, both of them coaxing the arrow out of her shoulder while Hubert stands over them, and Ashe—nowhere to be seen, oddly enough. He turns back, ready to aim straight for the archers and trust Caspar and Petra with the swordsmen, but then he sees it—a shadow of movement behind a rock formation, so fast it’s almost unnoticeable—

The Creator Sword is whipping out before he can think twice. The rock crumbles under its blade— _a thief,_ Byleth realizes, racing towards Ingrid with a dagger in hand—Hubert’s palms spread open, but he only manages a crackle of magic before he winces and clutches at the blisters on his skin—Byleth runs, knocks the thief off his feet with a desperate swing of his sword, a little faster and—

And. And then Ashe is there, knife at the thief’s neck. He doesn’t even get to speak before blood gurgles out of his mouth and slit throat. Ashe drops the body, lets the blood pool beneath the corpse and seep into the cracks on the ground—his neutral expression does not change.

Until he turns around to face a paralyzed Hubert, a staring Dorothea, and a dazed Ingrid. “Ingrid! Are you alright? That arrow looked like it hurt!”

“Seems dangerous,” Hubert mumbles under his breath, too low for anyone but Byleth to hear.

Byleth shrugs. “I don’t know. I think you two would get along.”

The reinforcements are down within the next few, hurried minutes of activity—Edelgard comes out worse for wear, obviously exhausted from all the trekking and fighting and more trekking, and Byleth gently lays a hand over a bad wound on her dominant arm. The Heal spell comes around easier this time, and Edelgard relaxes under the magic. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she says.

“I couldn’t. But Linhardt taught me a bit.”

“Linhardt, hm,” Edelgard muses, talking more to herself than to him. She doesn’t speak again until Byleth heals her up enough that walking should no longer be such an effort. “You two really get along well, don’t you?”

 _How many times have I been asked this same question?_ “I don’t know,” Byleth answers truthfully. “We don’t have anything special.”

For some reason, Edelgard winces and turns away. “Right. Um, don’t let him hear you say that, will you?”

“Why—”

“Thank you for the help,” she says, and then she’s back at Hubert’s side again, leading the way back to the monastery.

It’s confusing and more than a little odd, but Byleth supposes it’s probably not that important and decides to forget about it quickly, falling into step with Caspar as they start the walk back home. Linhardt grumbles under his breath as his hands move over Caspar’s body, from his arms to his shoulders to his back to his torso, telling him off for getting himself hurt again; Caspar retorts by saying there’s nothing _wrong_ with internal bleeding, that’s where his blood is supposed to _be,_ after all. Ashe doesn’t suppress his laugh fast enough, and Linhardt does his best to glare witheringly at the both of them.

“That’s right!” Caspar turns to face Ashe, ignoring Linhardt’s sputtered protest for him to stay still. “It was your birthday just this week, right, Ashe? I’ve got your gift back in my room! I worked real hard on it and everything, so you better remember to stop by!”

“ _I_ have to be the one to stop by?” Ashe asks, but the giggle in his voice destroys any indignation.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m probably gonna crash as soon as we’re back and you know I’m gonna forget by tomorrow. Like what happened the last two days.” Caspar rubs the back of his head, laughing awkwardly and shiftily looking away. “Not out of nerves or anything. Haha. Yeah.”

From over Caspar’s shoulder, Linhardt mouths _it’s nerves_ towards Byleth.

“Ahh, thanks so much.” Ashe smiles, and Byleth can almost see Caspar’s entire person light up. Linhardt hides a snort of amusement. “I’ll look forward to it. Oh, but Byleth,” he adds, hurriedly retrieving something from his uniform pocket, “I’m so sorry, I forgot to return this! Here you go!”

And he hands over the bloodied knife he had used to slit the throats of two men.

It’s not a special knife—Byleth vaguely remembers plucking it off a corpse some months ago after his old knife had gotten stuck in another’s skull—but it’s still one of his better ones, sharpened to perfection and just the right size to hide in his coat as a last resort weapon. Yet he’s never been the best with knives; his hands are too big to hold their small hilts properly, and the finesse required for it has never come as naturally to him as it does with swords. And he’s seen how Ashe can use a knife, lighter than the already-light bow and arrow but just as deadly…

“You can have it,” Byleth says. When Ashe blinks at him in confusion, Byleth gently pushes his hands back and away from him. “Happy birthday.”

Linhardt stares at them. “Really? A knife?”

“And not even a new one,” Caspar grouses.

But Ashe just breaks into another laugh, happy and carefree, and tucks the knife back into his pocket. “I’ve never been given a knife as a gift before. But this is a nice knife, Byleth! It cuts really easily and everything. Where did you get it?”

Byleth frowns. “I picked it off a corpse, so I don’t know. Sorry. You could ask the blacksmith if they recognize the forging style.”

“You picked it off a corpse?” Linhardt repeats, sounding faint.

“You _like_ getting knives as birthday gifts?” Caspar almost yells at Ashe.

Ashe blushes, his freckles standing out on the redness. “It _is_ a nice knife. Here, you hold it—”

“No! I’m alright!”

“Is he?” Byleth asks Linhardt, as Caspar storms off ahead of them and Ashe scrambles to catch up.

Linhardt sighs, reaching up to heal a cut on Byleth’s cheek. He hadn’t even noticed it was there until his head suddenly feels much less light. “He just doesn’t want his own gift to look boring in comparison. It’s a new bow he commissioned from the blacksmith, if you were wondering. Cost him half his savings.”

“Oh.” Byleth watches them a little longer, their easy banter and the way their smiles mirror one another’s, then looks over at Dorothea and Ingrid—Ingrid fumbles with her words for a solid minute before finally handing over what seems to be a ring. Huh. He looks away. _Do Linhardt and I look like that, to others?_ Byleth vaguely wonders.

Linhardt peers down—down…—at him. “What are you thinking of?”

“Do we look like that?”

“Er. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Byleth waves a hand at Caspar and Ashe, and then at Ingrid and Dorothea. “Like them.” He’s not sure exactly what they are— _happy,_ certainly, but the word doesn’t seem to encompass everything he’s getting from them, and his vocabulary is pitifully small.

But it doesn’t look like Linhardt needs him to elaborate, because he breathes in deep before slowly asking, “Do you want to be?”

Byleth blinks. “Not necessarily.” _It would be nice,_ he thinks about saying, but decides against it. He doesn’t linger on the topic further, instead looking at Linhardt again and asking, “Are you alright, by the way? Did you get hurt anywhere?”

“…What?” Linhardt chokes out.

“A while ago. During battle.” Byleth lets his hand skim over Linhardt’s arm, and he pauses over the back of his palm. Linhardt doesn’t protest when Byleth casts a Heal spell, watching the skin chafed from overuse of magic smoothen over. “Sorry,” Byleth murmurs. “You had to heal me a lot again this time.”

Linhardt pulls his arm away from Byleth once the spell is finished, pressing his palm close to his chest. “It’s fine. That’s my job. But…”

He trails off. For a while, the only sounds are the chatter of their schoolmates around them—Byleth can see the town they had passed by earlier just over the horizon. When he looks beside him, Linhardt is staring at his palms, one of them pale and unblemished and the other still reddened raw. “Oh,” Byleth says, reaching to take Linhardt’s other hand in his, “I forgot the other one. Sorry.”

“Teach me to fight.”

The Heal spell stutters over his skin, like a candle flickering vainly in the wind. Byleth looks up at him, his shuttered gaze and the hard line of his mouth. “Linhardt?”

“The only reason I had to heal you so much was because you had to protect me,” Linhardt says, all in one breath. His hands are trembling, but Byleth keeps the faith magic strong—he steadies after a while, sighing as he turns away. “I… thought I’d be fine, healing from a distance. It’s what I’m best at, after all—so it’d only be smart of me to stay as far away from the fighting as possible, because what use am I there, but—”

He inhales. Exhales. His palm has long been healed, but Byleth holds onto his hand anyway, if only to give him the illusion of warmth. “I don’t want others to get hurt because of me,” Linhardt finally says, gaze downcast. “Even if I can heal them… what if next time I end up too late? What if they’re too far away?”

_What if I don’t move fast enough?_

It’s silent around them, and Byleth belatedly realizes they’ve stopped walking—the nearest people he can see are Petra and Ferdinand up ahead, their voices inaudible from the distance. He takes a step forward, and has to suppress a relieved sigh when Linhardt follows, seemingly automatically. “I don’t know how I can teach you,” Byleth starts. “I don’t know anything about controlling reason magic, after all. But… I can try. I can be there.”

Linhardt looks at him, finally, but just barely—Byleth can’t even properly see his eyes, his long lashes obscuring the dark blue. “Are you sure?”

“I promise.”

“You—” Linhardt huffs in what sounds like—and what Byleth hopes is—amusement. “You’ve been throwing that word around rather often, recently.”

He has. He knows he shouldn’t, not with how easy it is to break them, to throw them away and pretend he had never made a promise he knew he couldn’t keep. Because as long as he’s stayed in the monastery, he knows, too well, that returning to the mercenary life is inevitable—someday he’s going to leave, someday he’s going to stop being a student and go back to being a killer, someday people will remember the _Ashen Demon_ again.

Today might be a normal day. Tomorrow might be a normal day. But someday, maybe the day after tomorrow, maybe many days from now—but someday a day will come, and then Byleth will never see Linhardt again.

“What are you thinking of?” Linhardt asks. They’re walking, but they’re still too far away from the rest of their classmates that it’s near-silent around them.

“When—” _When I’ll have to leave you. When you’ll have to leave me._ “When we’re getting home.”

Linhardt smiles, and though it’s tinged with a sadness Byleth can’t even begin to describe, it’s a smile all the same. “Home, hm?”

“ _Lin! Byleth!_ ” someone yells from up ahead—definitely Caspar, because Byleth doesn’t know anyone else whose voice is that loud. “What are you two doing! Let’s get home already before we get stuck with leftovers for dinner—Ashe, let go, _if I quiet down they’re not gonna hear me_ —”

Byleth tugs on Linhardt’s wrist, then blinks when he realizes he’s holding it in the first place. But the warmth is nice, and Linhardt doesn’t pull away, so he keeps it there. “When do you want to start training?”

“Training?” Linhardt’s nose scrunches up. “You know that’s possibly one of my least favorite words.”

“You asked for it,” Byleth reminds him.

Linhardt shakes his head. “I know, I know. Let’s discuss it when we get home, please.”

And though Byleth knows Linhardt’s just going to lock himself in his room and sleep well into tomorrow afternoon and probably avoid Byleth for the better part of the week in the hopes he’ll forget about it (Byleth would know—Linhardt had done the same when Byleth tried to get him to do his homework), Byleth lets it go. They catch up to Caspar and Ashe, who had kindly gone back for them, and hurry to rejoin the rest of their classmates just up ahead. He recognizes their surroundings, too—a little further and they’ll be reaching the town by the monastery, where Father is undoubtedly waiting to lecture them for running away by themselves.

Home. It doesn’t seem so far away, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: still fight scenes but much more exciting, i promise


	9. wyvern moon (2) — “what’s weaker than that?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We haven’t met, have we? I’m Sylvain.”
> 
> “Nice to meet you,” Byleth says, because _I don’t care_ sounds too rude, then lets the Creator Sword snap towards his horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[just close your eyes, the sun is going down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhAS_GnJIc) _
> 
> this is twice the length of the previous chapter LOL anyway please enjoy!! this is one of my favorites in academy phase hehe. also THANK YOU FOR ALL THE KUDOS & COMMENTS!!! especially the people who commented on every chapter ❤❤❤

“We haven’t met, have we? I’m Sylvain.”

“Nice to meet you,” Byleth says, because _I don’t care_ sounds too rude, then lets the Creator Sword snap towards his horse. Sylvain swerves away but veers back to jab his lance straight for, commendably enough, Byleth’s eyes—Byleth jumps back, using the Creator Sword to keep his balance, and huffs when Sylvain rushes back at him without breaking momentum. On a whim, he holds his free hand out, palm opening—

A burst of fire knocks Sylvain off his mount. Byleth hears him swear, but his battalion is already moving into a formation Byleth vividly recognizes from ten minutes ago, when he had narrowly escaped what looked like certain death via fusillade, courtesy of someone else from the Golden Deer.

Well, probably not certain _death,_ but it would certainly have hurt.

Byleth dives into the nearby forest before the arrows rain down on him—a low-hanging branch hits his face not two steps in, but he’ll take a scratch on his cheek over arrows in his skull any day. No one chases after him, and he slides to hide in a thicket—the sounds of fighting are clear, close by but nothing in the immediate vicinity.

With a wince, he reaches behind himself and grips the arrow buried in his back—blood spurts and sputters when he pulls it out, splattering red all over the leaves and grass, but at least it comes out cleanly. Byleth tosses the arrow over his head and steadies his shaking hand over the still-bleeding wound on his thigh, but no glow of faith magic comes. Right. He’s never understood why faith magic refuses to work on the caster. Linhardt probably does, though. Maybe he should ask him.

“Must you _always_ be thinking about that boy?” Sothis sighs, perched like a cat on the tree branch above him. “Some nights you even _dream_ of him, when your dreams aren’t infested by fish and dogs and cats.”

 _Really?_ Byleth never remembers his dreams for very long, can only ever recall the feelings left afterwards. _What about him do I dream of?_

“I don’t know. Boring things. Studying in the library together. Eating sweet buns in his room. Absolutely abhorrent. Go get yourself checked by Professor Manuela. You disgust me.”

Those dreams sound perfectly normal and acceptable, as opposed to the one he had those months ago—a war, had it been a war?—and he really doesn’t understand Sothis sometimes. Byleth looks down at his thigh, and though blood trickles persistently out of a wound there, it’s not so bad that he can’t move around. And…

He looks down at his palms, still smelling faintly of fire and smoke. _Reason magic._ It’s started coming easier now, after training with Linhardt and needing a way to combat his magic without risking the Creator Sword’s durability, but spellcasting has never left him feeling so ready to do more until now. There had been a fleeting sense of satisfaction when the fire had left him—he can still feel it now, the energy at his fingertips, gathering and gathering and then flaring _out—_

“Stop spacing out! You _are_ in a battle, aren’t you?” Sothis drops a leaf on his head. One of the few things she seems to be able to physically touch—likely because it weighs as much as her or something.

Byleth begrudgingly stands, slinking towards the edge of the woods to peer out at the rest of the battlefield. With Edelgard’s directions, Bernadetta had been able to take control of the ballista in the center of the field, Ferdinand and Hubert keeping other enemies away from her; Dorothea, Caspar, and Edelgard herself are advancing on the rest of the Blue Lions, Edelgard clashing blades against Dimitri with unnerving ferocity. On the other side of the field should be where Petra and Linhardt are, up against the Golden Deer—where Byleth should be, before he had made a mad dash away from the fusillade and ended up running into Sylvain. Right. He had essentially abandoned them, hadn’t he.

Petra had been doing okay, he remembers, though she sort of always is. Byleth’s never seen her in a tough spot she couldn’t get herself out of before. But Linhardt…

He waits for when a path straight through the field is clear before rushing out, almost dragging his bad leg behind him and using the Creator Sword to ward off any opponents trying to get near. Something whistles beside him, flattening blades of grass to the ground—Byleth ducks on instinct, and a cutting gale of wind soars past him, slamming into an unfortunate soldier from the Golden Deer instead.

Byleth turns behind him, and the Blue Lions mage who had cast the spell is already stretching her arms out, more wind magic ruffling her orange hair—he turns back and runs, narrowly avoiding another gust of wind that sends a different soldier flying through the air to crash straight into—

_“Linhardt!”_

It takes him a moment to realize that shout had come from him, and only after his throat feels suddenly rough and raw from exerting itself in ways it’s never had to before. Byleth falters, stumbles, trips and falls and lands hard on his bad thigh, a choked gasp escaping him as he looks back and sees Ashe standing beside the orange-haired mage—and then down at his leg, where a fresh new arrow is sticking out of. Byleth thinks he swears, but it’s hard to hear things when he’s torn between hiding again and going to—to—

Ashe moves—Byleth reacts without thinking, stretching his arm out and feeling something sharper and colder than fire flicker through his arm. Electricity arcs across the field, a messy, violent snarl of lightning that Ashe and the mage have to scramble backwards to avoid—it leaves the ground blackened and scorched where it lands, and the smoke it sends up provides enough cover for Byleth to push himself back up and stagger behind the nearest tree. The pain in his leg is spreading throughout the rest of his body now, but he forces it down, because all he can focus on is _Linhardt Linhardt Linhardt—_

He looks out, scans the field. It’s a flurry of action everywhere he looks, soldiers and soldiers and— _oh, Petra,_ there she is. There are crumpled bodies all around her, their opponents dragging themselves away to safety, and from here she looks like a force of nature, sword dancing in time to her movements. Byleth looks around more, _more—_ and, _there—_

Warmth. _Hot tea. Library books._

Byleth looks down, just in time to watch the wounds on his leg close up. There’s no salvaging all the blood he’s spilled now, with how lightheaded he can feel himself getting, but the pain is gone, replaced by the same comforting warmth he’s come to rely on as often as his arms and legs. When he looks back at the field, he almost misses the flash of faith magic right before it blinks out; in its place comes a whirl of wind gales. For a second, he tenses—expects blood, expects widened eyes, expects horror to dawn on a red-splattered face—

But when the soldiers hit by the wind spell fall, it’s only because the wind forces them down to the ground. No blood spills. No gashes open. Hurt, but alive.

He knows, logically enough, that it’s because none of them are in any real danger here—this is the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion, and while those arrow wounds had hurt enough, no one here is aiming to kill the other. There are no risks—this is school-mandated—healers are nearby for serious injuries—but Byleth thinks Linhardt must echo his own sigh of relief, all the same.

Linhardt’s Physic spell does wonders, even if it’s not the same as having him close by as Byleth’s more accustomed to—he dashes out into the fray, the Creator Sword whipping around him with newfound energy. He switches to a one-handed grip on the sword, trusting it to act for itself, and uses his free hand to cast sloppy spells just good enough to distract opposing soldiers for Petra to take out; not too far away, he can see Linhardt inching closer to him, arms trembling but hands steady as wind magic flows out of his hands smooth as a river. “Are you alright?” Linhardt asks, as soon as they’re near enough to be heard above the din. “I saw you limping, and—”

“Fine now, thank you,” Byleth says—he sends the Creator Sword lashing out to sweep an approaching soldier off her feet, knocking into the one behind her in the process and sending both of them sprawling on the ground. He almost smiles. “Are _you_ alright?”

Linhardt swallows, nods. “You weren’t gone for long. Don’t worry. Petra’s already taken out a good chunk of the Golden Deer students—only Claude and Hilda are left, I believe, and maybe a few more in hiding.”

Byleth can just barely remember what Claude looks like, and the name Hilda is wholly unfamiliar to him, but he nods like he understands anyway. By the amused curl of Linhardt’s lips, he supposes his act isn’t quite as convincing as he would like it to be. “We should get away from here, close in on where those two are—” He breaks off to fling his hand out behind Linhardt, thunder striking down on an archer aiming for Linhardt’s back—“otherwise we’ll be stuck fighting here all day. Find somewhere to hide. I’ll get Petra.”

They duck into a thick copse of trees, the leaves clumped and clustered enough that barely any sunlight shines through—Petra crouches behind a rock and snipes passing soldiers from afar with her bow, commenting mildly on how it feels just like hunting rabbits back in her homeland, which Byleth can relate to. He used to do the same when traveling in the wilderness, back before Father let him fight on the frontlines with the rest of them…

“What are you two doing?” Linhardt asks, sounding faintly disturbed. “You’re not about to turn around and hunt other humans for sport, are you?”

Petra frowns. “Why would you ever suggest such a thing? Human meat does not even taste good!” She smiles brightly, then pouts a little when Linhardt only stares at her. “It was a joke. I do not know what human meat tastes like. Though I have heard—”

“No, it’s fine, no need to elaborate,” Linhardt gently says, already looking sick. “Anyway, what do you suggest we do? Claude is a tactician, if you recall. I’d be surprised if he didn’t know we were here right now, actually.”

Byleth crosses his arms. “We could wait him out. See if he gets too impatient and searches for us ourselves.” The tactic had worked every time with their past targets, after all, especially the most arrogant ones, and Byleth is very patient. The longest he’s ever waited a target out must have been over half a day.

Petra shakes her head. “Too slow—if we do not engage, he will know what we are doing. A sneak attack would be best, from an area he cannot observe as well as the rest.”

“Don’t you think he might be able to predict that?” Linhardt argues. “We might stand more of a chance if we search for Hilda first—if she’s being attacked, he’ll certainly come and provide backup. Then we’ll have the advantage—”

“—of numbers, am I right?”

Byleth sees the exact moment Linhardt freezes up, his entire body going still, which is exactly why he rushes to stand in front of Linhardt—but no attack comes, oddly enough. Petra slices at the shadows with her sword, but gets little else aside from a number of unfortunate leaves floating to the ground. For a tense moment, nobody moves—and then Claude himself comes sauntering out of the dark, easily blocking Petra’s sword with an axe as soon as she springs towards him.

“Now, now, no need to be so violent!” he exclaims, pushing her back just enough for the blade of her sword to remain a respectable distance from his chest. “I just wanted to talk! A nice friendly talk, that’s all.” Claude winks. “Come on, I’m offering a little deal here. You’d be ridiculous not to say yes.”

“You are the ridiculous one for coming here,” Petra evenly replies, pushing her sword closer. Byleth can’t bring himself to look away from how her muscles are bulging from exertion; she’s a lot stronger than her lithe frame suggests. “Let me take you out, Claude. It will be fast, I can promise that much.”

Claude laughs. “Take me out? Like, on a date or with this sword?”

Petra doesn’t blink, but confusion does cross her expression for the shortest instant. “What?”

The momentary distraction is enough for Claude to force her back, and Petra acquiesces, halting in front of Byleth and Linhardt and holding her sword out as if protecting them. “Just listen for a sec, won’t you? I’m offering a truce here.”

“A… truce?” Linhardt echoes. It’s the first he’s spoken since Claude revealed himself, and he sounds ready to shrink into the bushes if he has to say another word.

Claude nods. “That’s right. Have you guys seen the rest of your classmates out there with Dimitri’s? It’s an actual war zone. Little miss Adrestian princess is out for blood.”

It’s not hard to believe, considering what Byleth had seen earlier, but he’s fairly sure Dimitri is, too. “Do you mean you want us to team up with you and defeat the Blue Lions together?”

“Exactly right! Knew I could count on you, By.”

Byleth doesn’t process the word for a short, confused second. “By?”

“By, short for Byleth. What? Don’t like it?” Claude cocks his head to the side, leaning back a little and grinning impishly. “Would you prefer Leth?”

“Why should we trust you?” Linhardt cuts in before Byleth can think of what to say. His voice is tinged with distaste, as if he’s speaking to some dirt on his shoe, and a subtler, lower emotion Byleth can’t place.

Claude shrugs, and though the movement looks languid, Byleth can tell it’s carefully calculated to look exactly that. “Because you don’t have much of a choice?”

Caspar slices an arrow in two.

This is probably not the first time he’s done it. He’s too fast for it to have been a fluke, and he moves with a practiced ease that must be as close to grace as Caspar can get. And when he moves again, Ashe just barely ducks out of the way of his axe. “How did you do that?” Ashe yelps, staying a safe distance away and looking undecided between his bow and axe.

“What? Cut down a speeding arrow?” Caspar laughs. “I’ve been practicing a lot with Bernadetta, all ‘cause I knew I’d be up against you today!”

“He means he wanted to impress Ashe,” Linhardt mumbles beside him.

Getting back to the Blue Lions’ side of the field had been remarkably easier with Claude leading them and Hilda (having been resting on a rock while Claude confronted the three of them) dragging her axe along behind her—though really, there aren’t many soldiers left on any of the three Houses to make it very hard. Then they’d stopped halfway through to hide behind some trees, because Caspar slicing down an arrow that had been racing right towards him without breaking a sweat is hardly something they see everyday, as is Ashe’s gobsmacked face.

Claude whistles. “Hilda, do you think you could do the same? Actually, don’t answer that—I’ll start training with you right away after this.”

“What?” Hilda whines. “Claude, do you think slow little me could really do that?”

“Slow? Tell _that_ to poor Ferdinand after you almost chopped his head off—”

“You have done _what?_ ” Petra asks, voice dangerously low.

“No! No, no one’s been beheaded!” Hilda cries. “I could never be so crude! Well, there was that one time last month—and the month before that—but really, do I look like an executioner to you?”

Linhardt rubs his temple and shuffles further away from the three of them, pressing up against Byleth’s shoulder instead. “How long has it been since this ridiculous battle started? Can’t we leave already?”

Byleth hums in acknowledgement. Most of his classmates had been looking forward to the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion for the past month, and even Father has been pushing them to train more than usual—Caspar must have taken that more seriously than both Byleth and Linhardt combined, with the new speed and finesse he’s confounding Ashe (and the rest of them) with. Throughout the month, though, all Byleth’s really done is study dark magic and feed the monastery’s cats and dogs.

And practice reason magic with Linhardt.

“You did well today,” Byleth tells him, turning away from Caspar and Ashe’s scuffle to face a confused Linhardt. “On your magic, I mean. It was good.”

It’s hard to tell in the shadows of the trees, but Byleth thinks he sees Linhardt’s cheeks color. “What? I mean, thank you, I suppose…” He fidgets uncomfortably for a moment, then mutters, “You’re terribly embarrassing, aren’t you…”

“Embarrassing?”

“Well—well, you don’t have to…” Linhardt’s definitely bright red now, visible even in the darkness. “To say such things.”

“What? _You did well?_ ” Father’s scarce with compliments, but that’s how Byleth knows he’s done a genuinely good job. He knows Father is the same with both the mercenaries and the students, and that both treasure his rare praise—maybe Linhardt doesn’t respond as well to it. “I can stop, if you want.”

Linhardt’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head slowly, as if wary of his response. “No! It’s—it’s fine. Keep, um, keep doing it.” He looks down. “But only…”

Caspar yells out his typical battle cry, drowning out the rest of Linhardt’s words—Byleth looks back out, just in time to watch Caspar tackle Ashe to the ground. They hit the grass with a heavy _thump,_ and Caspar levels the blade of his axe beneath Ashe’s chin. “Gotcha.”

“You’ve got an arrow sticking out of your shoulder,” Ashe points out, reaching up to tug at the arrow in question. Caspar winces, but his grip doesn’t waver, and Ashe laughs. “Fine, fine, you got me. Don’t worry, I’ll hold up my end of the deal, I’ll go now.”

“Heheh. I won even with your new bow.” Caspar stands up, extending a hand down for Ashe to pull himself up with, and he turns around to stretch his arms. “Let’s spar again later! And let’s both use axes, because if not we’d both have to use bows, and you know I really suck with those things, I just can’t aim no matter what—”

The glint of a blade. Byleth’s halfway out of the bushes—before he realizes there’s no need.

Caspar’s knocked the knife out of Ashe’s hand with the handle of his axe—Ashe hisses and pulls his quickly-reddening hand back to his chest, his knife tumbling onto the grass. “Thought so,” Caspar says, still grinning as he plucks the knife off the ground, wisely not handing it back to Ashe yet. “I asked Hubert to try assassinating me too!”

Ashe’s disappointed expression shifts into amused disbelief. “Seriously? How much did you prepare for this?”

“The only thing I still can’t do now is cast magic!” Caspar steps forward, and after a moment’s pause, tucks the knife into the pocket of Ashe’s uniform. They’re suddenly much closer than before, and not because they’re fighting either—Caspar’s looking down, still lightly gripping Ashe’s shirt, and a red-faced Ashe is wordlessly staring at him. “Uh. So, by the way, there was something I meant to say…”

Byleth doesn’t get to see nor hear much more than that, because Claude is suddenly crowding him and Linhardt, pulling them up to their feet while Petra convinces Hilda to follow. “Alright, alright, let’s go now,” Claude whispers, faux-casual, “this has been very interesting and all, but we shouldn’t, ahem, intrude—”

“What! No, I need to see this, that’s my best friend, I’m required by law,” Linhardt argues, but Claude bodily lifts him up with little difficulty, like he’s carrying a particularly big cat. “Urrgh. Let me go, you villain.”

“Me, a villain? Your words wound me so.” Claude drags a protesting Linhardt away from the scene, pushing him onto Byleth as soon as they’re far away enough. “You handle him, By, I bet you know how to hold him in place. Hm?”

Linhardt goes perfectly still. “You…”

Claude smiles. “Me?”

“Forgive me. I cannot find the words to describe just how much I detest you right now.”

“Sounds like you just did,” Claude says. “Come on—we spent enough time watching those two go at it. The rest of them must be over there. Hilda, get over here! You’ve got working legs, so stop trying to convince me you don’t!”

Linhardt sulks for another long minute, but doesn’t return to the trees. Byleth looks behind them, though there’s hardly anything to see. “What were they doing that we can’t watch?” Byleth asks.

“Why?” Linhardt stares at him incredulously. “You couldn’t tell?”

Byleth pauses, thinks about how they had looked. Close, almost too close, closer than Byleth could ever imagine being comfortable with. The kind of close that means sharing body heat, close enough to see into each other’s eyes… “Was Caspar going to stab him?”

“Are you serious?” Linhardt chokes out.

Byleth shrugs. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Oh,” he remembers, turning to face Linhardt, “weren’t you saying something? Before Caspar interrupted you.”

“Er.” Linhardt colors again, averting his gaze and suddenly seeming very busy fiddling with his hair ribbon. “No, it was nothing. Never mind that. Forget about it, will you?”

“But—”

“Come on,” Linhardt insists, a little desperate, and Byleth decides to agree for now—he can always ask Linhardt about it some other time, preferably off the battlefield.

When they get to where the sounds of fighting are loudest, it’s to find Dimitri and Edelgard, and—well, not much else, because they’re moving too fast for Byleth to see more than the flash of Dimitri’s lance and Edelgard’s axe. The familiar smell of miasma hangs thick in the air like a fog, but Hubert himself is nowhere to be seen. Had he been taken out, too? Byleth winces a little—he can’t imagine Hubert’s rather sickly constitution holding out very well under Dimitri’s monstrous strength.

“Alright, come on, looks like it’s only His Princeliness left for the Lions,” Claude says, hurrying them into the edge of the nearby woods. “I can aim from here, and Linhardt can use Physic. The three of you should go out and help Edelgard.”

“Why _me,_ ” Hilda grumbles. “And why are _you_ giving us all the orders, Claude? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, hiding here just so you can get up close and personal with P—”

“ _Anyway,_ ” Claude interrupts, “how about my plan, hm? We should probably act now, before either of them gets a lucky shot and slices the other’s head off.”

They wait for when Edelgard has Dimitri distracted enough, their weapons scraping against each other, that Dimitri isn’t paying attention to his back—Petra rushes in then, fast enough that Dimitri only notices her a second before she cuts into his back with her sword. It’s a shallow wound at best, but it provides Edelgard enough of an opening to swing her axe and send him stumbling to the grass. “Must you be so hard on us?” he groans, positioning his lance above his neck before Edelgard can level her axe above him.

“How will you submit otherwise?” Edelgard asks. She isn’t smiling, but Byleth can tell the fight has her more energized than ever—it’s something Linhardt usually scoffs at, but Byleth knows the feeling of fighting someone on his level, especially when it isn’t life-or-death.

Dimitri huffs and says something Byleth can’t hear, still hidden as he is behind a tree. Claude had planned him to go with Petra and Hilda (who hasn’t done much aside from lounge safely behind Petra), but there’s a certain security that comes with staying hidden when the threat’s seemingly been disposed of. Something about this feels _too_ easy—where’s Dimitri’s retainer? Byleth knows where Dimitri goes, he follows. And where are the rest of the Blue Lions? Surely they couldn’t have _all_ been taken out.

And why is it so unnervingly _quiet?_

“By,” Claude hisses, barely audible with the distance between them, “get out! Go! Before Dimitri gets back up!”

 _Back up?_ Byleth chances a glance over to them, and only sees Edelgard jabbing her axe closer to Dimitri’s throat, probably telling him to yield. Dimitri says something back, probably telling her he won’t. Something feels off. Something feels _wrong—_ why isn’t Dimitri fighting back?

_Claude is a tactician, if you recall…_

Byleth whirls back around. “Linhardt,” he calls—and stumbles back, when pain tears into his stomach. _No, no, no—_ he gropes around without looking down, rips the ( _serrated,_ of course) arrow out of himself, but there is no Physic spell, no comfortingly familiar warmth of faith magic to ease the pain, because— _where is he—_ Byleth looks around and around and sees Petra sloppily blocking Hilda’s axe, Edelgard fighting off Dimitri and his retainer at once, but _he can’t find Linhardt—_

He hears it before it comes, this time: the whistle of an arrow, sharp and shrill. Byleth ducks, relying on hearing alone, pain making his vision swim—he holds out his shaking hands, feels electricity gather over his palms but fizzle out in the next second when he doesn’t move fast enough before the next arrow sinks into his arm. “Sorry, By,” he hears Claude, speaking above him, “but really, you should’ve known better than to trust me in a fight like this—”

The Creator Sword growls, _snarls,_ and all Byleth has to do is grip its handle firmly enough for it to strike. But Claude is fast, and he must have been expecting it, because the sword’s blade only manages to slice off a few thin strands of dark hair. “It’s nothing personal, alright?” Claude continues, sounding no different than earlier. “If it makes you feel better—”

Byleth moves again. The sword still meets nothing. “—You don’t need to try and kill me every time I start a new sentence, you know. If it makes you feel better, I’ve got others ready to take out Dimitri as soon as the last of you go down, so at least it’s us winning, not the Lions.”

“You—” What is he supposed to say in a situation like this? There’s the possibility that he’s going to die from these arrow wounds, with how unnaturally _bad_ they hurt, and he wonders if he should ask Claude something along those lines. _For all your nicknames, you really are trying to kill me right now, aren’t you? Are these arrows poisoned or something? Did you make the poison yourself?_

But all that leaves Byleth’s mouth is “Linhardt…”

No response. He blinks blearily upwards, and sees nobody there. Footsteps, then the sound of an arrow being nocked—Claude must have moved further away, then.

Byleth drags himself over to where he had left Claude and Linhardt together (stupid, _stupid)_ , uncaring of whatever else is happening out there, and bumbles around like an idiot until his hand finds a fistful of soft hair. Green—it blends in with the grass. “Linhardt,” he murmurs, “Linhardt, are you… Linhardt…”

A groan. “Byleth?”

He would collapse from relief if he weren’t already crawling around on the soil. “You’re alright?” Byleth lays a hand on the first patch of Linhardt’s skin he reaches, trails down from his cheek to his shoulder to his arm to his— _there,_ his stomach, there’s a stab wound from what is undeniably a sword. The sort of stab wound Byleth’s most familiar with, in other words. The Heal spell doesn’t take the least bit of effort to cast, even when the thought of performing reason magic right now makes him dizzy with exhaustion.

“I hate this,” Linhardt hisses, pushing himself up as soon as the magic dissipates. “He was going on about something I couldn’t have cared less about, maybe about his cooking or something equally ridiculous, and then suddenly he’s jabbing a sword in my gut and apologizing, like _that_ would make anything better—” He breaks off for a moment, and Byleth briefly wonders why before realizing he’s reaching out towards the clearing, his Physic spell enveloping Petra at first, then Edelgard, before his trembling arms sink back down to his sides and he looks down at Byleth. “You… You’re hurt.”

“I’ll live,” Byleth tells him, though for once he’s not sure if he wants to. Death sounds far more welcome than the pain coursing through him right now.

Linhardt curses and steadies a hand above his arm, where he hadn’t bothered pulling the second arrow out. “Poison,” he mumbles, “of course it is, what did I expect. What did _any_ of us expect. Hold on. Please, just hold on, Byleth.”

He feels it in the next moment—the magic, the warmth, the sunlight. Byleth breathes in deep, possibly for the first time since Claude’s arrows, and almost chokes on the air that fills his lungs up. He can physically _feel_ the poison leaving his body, slowly at first then all at once—when the magic dissipates and he stands up, the world’s brighter and clearer than he’s ever realized. “Thank you.”

Linhardt pulls himself up via Byleth’s coat, something Byleth is unfortunately used to by this point. “It’s nothing. Please, I need to exact proper vengeance on that—that cretin, first he doesn’t let me watch Caspar’s first confession and now he does _this—_ ”

“Wait,” Byleth says, “ _confession?_ ”

“Byleth. That is hardly at all important right now.”

“Okay, but tell me later, please,” Byleth asks.

Linhardt sighs, but despite everything that’s happened, he sounds amused. “I promise.”

Dimitri’s running ragged, that much is clear—with how long he’s been fighting and holding out for Claude to bring in reinforcements (something Byleth should have noticed so much earlier, _stupid)_ , his movements are slower and sloppier than Byleth knows they usually are, and he’s having trouble keeping up with Edelgard, divided though her attention may be. But Edelgard isn’t faring much better either against the onslaught of Dimitri’s retainer, who Byleth cannot, for the life of him, remember the name of—his axe looks far bigger and heavier than Edelgard’s, and his larger frame has him towering over his opponent. Byleth heads to help her first, swinging the Creator Sword and knocking Dimitri off his feet, then holding out his free hand to fire a crackling bolt of thunder towards the retainer.

“Dedue!” Dimitri yells— _thank goodness, a name_ —and Dedue moves faster than his bulk suggests, but stray sparks of lightning singe his clothes. The distraction gives Edelgard enough time to strike, her axe coming down hard on Dedue’s arm, who retaliates with a swift blow to the side of her head that sends her sprawling.

Byleth’s brain threatens to leak out of his ears at the sight. He’s never seen Edelgard look quite so vulnerable, and he barely thinks before leaping over her prone form to swing his sword down on the deep wound Edelgard had just left on Dedue’s arm. Blood gushes out—Dedue, to his merit, does not make a sound, instead crumpling to his knees. “As expected,” he chokes out, eyes flicking up at Byleth. “I did not think anyone could subdue you so easily.”

Is that a compliment? What is he even supposed to say to that? _Thank you_ sounds a bit too out-of-place. “Sorry about that,” Byleth decides, casting a rough Heal spell over Dedue’s arm, enough to stop the bleeding but keep him relatively incapacitated. “It’s nothing personal.”

He helps a dizzy Edelgard up to her feet and pours his magic into her—when her eyes flutter open, the first thing she says is, predictably, “Did you lead us into a trap?”

“We’ll be smarter about it next time,” Byleth tells her.

“Don’t let there be a next time,” she admonishes, but looks up at him with an excited look on her face all the same. “Thank you anyway—someone had taken Dorothea out ages ago, and healers had to drag Hubert off the field—” She shakes her head. “It’s a little frightening, to find yourself so alone so quickly.”

“You’re not,” Byleth reminds her. When she looks up at him again, brow furrowed, he repeats, “You’re not alone. We’re here, aren’t we?”

It takes her a moment longer than Byleth had expected to smile, but it’s real and genuine and happy, and that’s all he cares about, really. “You’re right. Of course you are.”

Petra is still fighting Hilda off, who Byleth now knows must be as excellent an actor as Claude to have fooled them all—behind Hilda is someone else from the Golden Deer, pale-skinned and blue-haired, healing every small cut and nick Petra manages to inflict. Edelgard shakes Byleth off to jump into the fray, blocking what could have been a fatal strike from Hilda and locking their axes together while Petra goes for the healer—Byleth scans the field, but Linhardt and Claude are nowhere to be found.

_No, no, not again…_

Something is moving—Byleth leaps back on instinct, and the arrow speeds past him into a tree instead. _Claude?_ He runs towards the clump of trees the arrow had come from, waving the Creator Sword blindly around, and hears a little squeak from above— _On the trees?_

He aims upwards, the sword slicing through the overhanging branches hidden by leaves, and has to sidestep the yelping student who comes crashing down onto the grass. “You’re not Claude,” Byleth says, a little redundantly.

“No, I’m not,” the student agrees. He adjusts his crooked glasses and slings his bow across his back, spreading his arms and looking generally unthreatening. “Um, you don’t have to fight me, considering you’ve clearly won, I can just walk off the field myself…”

“Draw your sword,” Byleth tells him. “I’m not falling for this one.”

The student shakes his head, dropping his arms only to grip the hilt of the sword strapped to his side. “Claude must have really gotten to you, huh?”

They clash blades—the student is good, but his fighting style is about as basic as it can get, never deviating from the standard recommended stance and having little personal touch of his own, making it terribly easy to block and counter his strikes, especially after the countless other people Byleth’s had to go against. When he disarms the student and knocks him down with the handle of his sword, he levels his blade just above the student’s neck. “I yield,” the student yelps.

“With work, you could improve your technique more than you already have,” Byleth tells him, watching the student’s eyes widen. “You’re too textbook. Try training with someone else who can challenge you to think outside of what you already know.”

He doesn’t wait to hear what the student says before running back out—Byleth has to believe he’ll leave on his own.

Somehow Dimitri’s gotten back up, fighting with newfound fervor, and though the healer from earlier has fallen back, casting one last Heal spell before letting a staff member drag her off the field, Hilda still looks as unharmed as she had been five minutes ago. Edelgard, on the other hand, is back to fighting off two opponents at once—Petra’s gone, but there’s a large gash down Dimitri’s dominant arm that looks like how she cuts open the animals she hunts.

And still no Claude—still, _still,_ no Linhardt.

Hilda’s axe goes down hard, and Edelgard stumbles back with a pained noise—the rushed Heal spell Byleth casts does little to help the new wound on her shoulder, and when he tries again, the magic sputters out like a dying flame. He winces—has he been casting too much? Mages are always advised not to use too much magic in a short span of time, as it can lead to _adverse effects_ none of the professors ever dwell too long on for—

Dimitri moves faster than Byleth sees, and his lance cuts into Byleth’s side, drawing blood that spatters across the grass beneath them—Byleth leaps back, landing next to Edelgard and parrying what would have been another axe strike from Hilda. But the Creator Sword seems to whine in pain, and Byleth can feel it getting weaker with him, too; he must be overusing it by now. No magic, no sword…

He slides the sword back into its sheath, almost smiles at Dimitri’s surprise and Hilda’s confusion, then draws a knife from his coat pocket—much less efficient than the one he had given Ashe, but it’s something.

“My,” Dimitri says, lowering himself back into an offensive stance, “do you think we aren’t worthy of the Sword of the Creator, Byleth?”

“Nothing like that.” Byleth looks over at Hilda, who yawns theatrically, then at Edelgard, who’s giving him a look that plainly states they are going to have Words after this battle. Which is great, because he’s been subject to only one of her infamous lectures so far, and he had really been hoping to keep it that way. “It’s just feeling a little tired.”

It occurs to him, at Dimitri’s perfectly confounded expression, that he probably sounds rather strange. But the words distract Dimitri just enough for Edelgard to rush him, her axe striking his lance out of his hands, and Byleth makes for Hilda in the next moment.

“Come on! No need to target me, I’m sorry we tricked you, alright!” Hilda complains—she blocks his pathetic knife well enough with her much broader axe, and Byleth doesn’t want to risk putting too much force in his attacks in case his last weapon breaks. Still, Hilda is too fast to leave herself defenseless, and her axe guards her small frame almost as well as an actual shield. The most he can do is keep her attention away from Edelgard until she finishes Dimitri off… assuming she _can,_ but Byleth has to believe she can do it, because he’s doomed to collapse from exhaustion otherwise.

“I’m not mad,” Byleth remembers to finally reply. He ducks beneath a wide swing of Hilda’s axe, and thrusts his knife forward—he cuts at the inside of her arm, but that leaves his back terribly open to the next strike of her axe, and he has to drop down and roll across the grass to avoid getting his spine snapped clean in half. Hilda huffs irritably. “Just disappointed.”

She whirls around with a hard kick to his stomach just as he gets up—if Hilda were any taller, he would have been sent sprawling backwards in an embarrassing heap. “You’re not my parents! Or even my professor! You don’t get to pull the disappointed card on me!” She lifts her axe, and Byleth scrambles to get out of the way, waving his knife wildly—all he manages is a thin cut on her uniform, not even touching her skin—

And then. He hears it—the unmistakable whistle of an arrow. It topples onto the grass, not having flown from where it emerged: a part of the woods he hadn’t gone in yet, thicker and darker and almost certainly much harder to navigate.

Byleth doesn’t give Hilda a second glance; he dodges her axe and tears away from her, and only briefly remembers to look back at Edelgard for permission. She’s still busy trying to overcome Dimitri’s sheer strength, but one glance and she already seems to know what he’s doing. Edelgard moves fast, sliding out from under Dimitri’s lance and letting him fall forward from his own force, and shouts, “Come back soon, alright? The both of you.”

“I’m—”

“Make it quick,” Edelgard interrupts. Dimitri’s already gotten back up, his heavy pants matching Edelgard’s ragged breathing. “I can only last so long by myself, you know.”

As much as he wants to, Byleth can’t rush blindly through the forest—it’s too thick with trees and bushes to run through without crashing into anything or getting his eyes gouged out with low-hanging branches, so he has to pick his way through the woods painfully slowly. He can still hear the whistling of arrows, the crackle of fire magic, and most of all a pair of familiar _voices,_ the sounds trickling in through the gaps between tree trunks—but they seem to come from everywhere at once, too difficult to reliably track down through sound alone.

Trust Claude to have lured Linhardt into the part of the woods easiest to hide in.

Byleth doesn’t know how long it takes before he finally starts hearing the voices a little clearer, and he follows the sounds like a predator on the hunt—there’s just enough light filtered in through the forest shade to see by, and the closer he gets, the more he can hear. “So you do feel that way,” he hears, in Claude’s careless, careful voice. “That’s kinda cute, huh?”

“Stop talking.” Linhardt.

“Aw, but it really is. Must’ve saved you dozens of times by now, am I right? I listen to the gossip, you know. Pretty rewarding in its own right.”

Byleth steps around a clearly disturbed patch of grass—no, wait, it’s a bush. Or it _was_ a bush, before it seems to have been trampled under two pairs of shoes, judging by the footprints. “Even if it’s true, so what?” Linhardt snaps—it sounds like the spark of a flame right before a full forest fire. “You’re quite curious, aren’t you? Is there a reason for that?”

“Oh, no, no. Not for the reason you must be thinking of. I wouldn’t do that.” A pause. Their words are mostly flying over Byleth’s head, but he wonders what they’re talking about, to be more invested in this conversation than getting the battle over with. “No, I’m just wondering… do you think you really have a chance?”

Silence. But Byleth’s close enough that he doesn’t need to follow their voices anymore—he peers out from a gap between the trees, and sees Claude standing on one side of a clearing, leaning confidently on one leg—and, when he moves from his spot, Linhardt on the other side, perfectly whole and unharmed and _alright,_ and Byleth’s never let out a heavier sigh of relief. Linhardt’s got his hands positioned in front of his chest, palms sparking with fire—is he going to attack? Should Byleth join him? No, he should wait until Linhardt distracts Claude enough for Byleth to launch the most efficient surprise attack possible in this situation—

“What do you mean?”

Byleth pauses. He’s never heard Linhardt’s voice quite so icy before.

Claude shrugs nonchalantly. “What do I mean—no need to look so murderous there, Linhardt. It’s an honest question waiting for its honest answer. I’ve heard plenty other rumors, too. Do you think those feelings of yours will ever be returned if it’s literally impossible?”

The air goes still. Byleth feels it more than he hears it—as if all the oxygen’s been sucked out of the atmosphere, drawn to one source, one person, controlling it all. “This,” Linhardt snarls, “isn’t any of your _business—_ ” and right away Byleth can feel it, the strangeness, the _wrongness,_ the way the hair on the back of his neck stands up, the static in the air and the stillness of the wind and the cold _rage_ in Linhardt’s voice—

He doesn’t have time to think. Byleth runs out, shoves Claude out of the way before blades of wind sharp as swords can cut him into pieces.

They tumble across the grass, coming to a stop before a mass of gnarled tree roots—Claude groans beneath Byleth, and Byleth hurriedly steps off him, only for his sore legs to force him back down onto the grass. His hands are shaking— _why?_ They shouldn’t be—but they are, and he has to will them to steady before climbing back up to his feet and extending a hand down to Claude. “Are you alright?”

Claude blinks up at him, almost uncomprehendingly, then takes his hand and pulls himself up. “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. Thanks.”

He must say something else, but Byleth isn’t paying attention anymore—he turns around to face Linhardt instead, and he opens his mouth to ask the same question when the words die in his throat.

Linhardt is standing there. Staring. Shaking. His hands are trembling most of all, and his wide-eyed gaze is fixed down at them, at his long fingers and pale palms, and that look on his face—Byleth’s seen it before, the same fear he’d seen on the canyon, the same guilt he’d seen in the forest, the same complete and utter desolation he has never wanted to see again. _The blood,_ Byleth remembers, _the blood on his hands—_

“Linhardt—”

He steps forward, but Linhardt’s eyes snap up to look at him and he scrambles back, voice tremulous when he shouts, “No—no, no, stay back, stay away! Don’t—Don’t come near!”

There’s a terrible pain in his chest. Byleth wonders what could hurt so much outside of a serrated arrowhead stuck in there, but he knows Claude hadn’t fired anything, and last time he’d checked Hilda hadn’t been carrying knives around to stab him with either, but it hurts so _much,_ and maybe later he can ask Linhardt what’s the problem, because a healer would be able to fix it, right? But first he has to—has to—“Linhardt,” he tries again, hating how his own voice comes out unsteady, “it’s okay, I—”

“No, _don’t,_ ” Linhardt repeats, and Byleth hears the crack of fire before it comes—he jumps out of the way right before a weak stream of fire bursts from Linhardt’s hands, and Linhardt cries out in both pain and shock. _Pain?_ Byleth has to heal him. Byleth can do that, because he knows how to heal, never mind if his own magic seems to have run out on him, he has to heal Linhardt because Linhardt can’t heal himself—“Stay away, Byleth,” he breathes, “ _please,_ I can’t…”

The desperation in his voice makes Byleth halt in place— _I have to heal him,_ he’s thinking, _but he doesn’t want me near him, he doesn’t want me,_ he’s thinking, and then by the time he’s regained control of his legs, Linhardt’s gone.

“So, um,” Claude says, after several moments of silence, “that looked bad. Will he be alright?”

Byleth whirls around to face him. “What were you talking about?”

Claude stops in place. The loss of movement is subtle, not an obvious freeze, but the way Claude’s gaze slides away is too telling for Byleth to not notice. “What could you possibly mean?”

“Before I came here. You must have said something to bother him. What happened?”

“You—” Claude shakes his head. “I was mostly trying to distract him and leave him open for an attack—I didn’t think it would affect him _that_ much. But since it did, I won’t apologize for trying to talk to him about something he’s already well aware of yet insists on ignoring. It would have harmed him more in the long run, if he kept avoiding the problem.”

“That’s not your place. You barely know him.”

“So it’s yours, then?” Claude asks, not unkindly. In fact, he almost sounds curious. “Do you want to talk to him about it? I can assure you it’s not going to help.”

“Why…” Byleth pauses there—he can feel his lips sinking into a frown, his brow furrowing, the cogs of his brain refusing to turn. Nothing makes _sense._ He should have paid more attention to their conversation earlier, but he hadn’t bothered listening intently, hadn’t tried to _understand,_ and maybe if he had, maybe if he’d stepped in before Linhardt had… had…

“Hey,” Claude says, his voice a little softer, “why don’t you go after him?”

Byleth looks at him. “What?”

“Even if he asked you to stay away, I doubt either of you seriously want that. Come on. He’ll get lost in woods this thick if he’s by himself.”

 _Whose fault is that?_ Byleth wants to ask— _This is just a ploy to get me away from Edelgard so you can join Dimitri and Hilda in taking her down,_ Byleth wants to point out— _Maybe you should do it yourself, if you’re so confident,_ Byleth wants to challenge—but mostly all he can think about is that fear, that guilt, that desolation. His mind seems stuck on it, on the tremble of Linhardt’s hands and the blue of his eyes and the pain in his magic—and Byleth looks back behind him, at a gap between trees Linhardt must have run through, and already knows what he has to do.

Now that he’s more accustomed to the forest, it isn’t so hard to shove his way through the maze of tree trunks, and even less so now that he has a fresh trail of tracks to follow. Linhardt hadn’t run far—Byleth finds him curled up by the base of a tree, its branches curving low over him as if for shelter. Even from a distance, Byleth can see him still shaking, dark blue eyes peeking out from mussed hair.

Byleth finds a twig to step on, the _crack_ audible in the silent forest—Linhardt’s head snaps up, and Byleth doesn’t even get the chance to say anything before Linhardt buries his face back in his knees. “Not now,” Linhardt murmurs. “Please, Byleth…”

He should keep going. He should keep walking, should sit beside Linhardt and convince him it’s alright and nobody was hurt—but for some reason Byleth stops in place. “I won’t hurt you.”

“That’s not my problem,” Linhardt snaps—“I’m concerned _I_ might hurt _you._ ” But whatever fire might be in his words is drowned out by the tremor in his voice, soft and vulnerable and so, so afraid.

Byleth steps closer. “Fine. You won’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I won’t let you hurt me.”

“Why—” Linhardt finally looks up at him, his eyes bloodshot, his shoulders shivering. Byleth expects him to shout, to yell, to tell him to leave already, but Linhardt slumps back down, gaze fixed on the tops of his knees. “Why can’t I get it right?” he whispers instead. “Why is it always going wrong?”

There’s nothing Byleth can say to that—it’s not like he knows the answer, after all. Instead, he sits beside Linhardt, keeping a safe distance away from him, for both their sakes.

Linhardt tilts his head just enough to face Byleth—Byleth gets the sudden, irrational urge to retie his low ponytail, come loose throughout the battle. “What a joke,” Linhardt mumbles. “I spoke so much about fighting and getting stronger, but in the end, I’m still the same, aren’t I? What’s weaker than that?”

“You did get stronger,” Byleth tells him, softly. He doesn’t know why, but his voice seems to soften on its own accord. “You fought today, didn’t you?”

“I almost—”

“But you didn’t,” Byleth interrupts. Linhardt stares up at him—curled up in himself like this, Byleth realizes, means this is one of the times Linhardt has to look up at him rather than down. He can’t say he dislikes it. “I was there. Nothing happened. Claude’s fine, and so am I, and so are you. No one’s hurt.”

“But it can happen,” Linhardt sighs. His hands are clenched into fists, the telltale redness of burn marks peering out from beneath his fingers. “Any time, any place, I could just… hurt you.”

Byleth cocks his head to the side. “Could you? I thought we established I won’t let you hurt me.”

Linhardt’s brow furrows. “How—”

“I promised I’d protect you, didn’t I? Even if I have to protect you from yourself.”

For a while, there’s only the gentle whisper of wind, the rustling of leaves, the birdsong echoing around them. Then Byleth shifts closer to Linhardt, closer than he can usually stand—but now, the prickling of his skin seems to pale in comparison to the worry in his chest. (He knows, at least, what _worry_ feels like—like the sting of a small animal’s bite, like watching Father charge into the fray without anyone to follow him but Byleth himself.) “Show me your hands.”

Linhardt doesn’t argue. Byleth brushes his own hands over Linhardt’s burnt ones, feels relief wash over him when his faith magic sparks to life again—then almost pulls back, when the relief morphs into fear, to guilt, to a sudden surge of _warmth_ in his chest. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, a warmth that threatens to spill into stifling heat but instead only feels like the familiar, comforting smile of scattered sunlight—

The burns fade, along with the magic, along with the warmth. Byleth opens his mouth— _What did you feel? What was that, just now?_ —but the faint screech of steel on steel hisses through the trees, and Byleth shamefully remembers he had willingly left Edelgard to deal with two enemies by herself. Now three, because there’s no doubt Claude had gone back for them. “Linhardt.”

He’s already shaking his head. “I won’t fight.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Byleth tells him, standing up and extending a hand down to him. “But you can still heal, can’t you? Your magic never failed you there.”

Linhardt swallows, and it takes him several moments longer than usual to reach up and take Byleth’s hand—but he does, his palm pale and unblemished again, and that’s what matters.

Hilda is gone when they get back, but Edelgard is only standing because of her axe dug into the ground—her legs are trembling from exhaustion, and though Dimitri doesn’t look much better, Claude is standing just a few ways away, as confident as he had been facing Linhardt. “Two of us against one of you, princess,” Claude drawls. “Not liking these odds, are you?”

“Shut… your traitor mouth.”

“Did you hear that?” Claude stage-whispers to Dimitri. “She called me a _traitor!_ ”

“You have to admit, you are,” Dimitri tells him.

“Your Princeliness, you’re supposed to be on _my_ side.”

Edelgard rolls her eyes. “Let’s not prolong this any longer. Do you wish to strike me down? So be it—only I assure you we will be back for revenge.”

“Whoa, whoa, no need to sound like your fairytale villain, Edelgard,” Claude says, holding his hands up. “I, for one, would love to bask in my success, and now I can tell Hilda that her sacrifice wasn’t in vain—”

He moves faster than Byleth had been hoping, nocking an arrow and firing it within the same second—but Byleth is fast too, and he swerves to the left to swing the Creator Sword towards Dimitri’s legs. Dimitri parries the hit with his lance, but then the lance snaps in two, which Byleth considers a win for him. “Oh, _By,_ ” Claude exclaims, another arrow at the ready, “looks like you made it back in one piece, huh?”

“Disappointed?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t wish for my savior to be hurt, after all. I’m not that terrible a person.” The next arrow comes close enough to tear through his coat, but Byleth’s not that concerned—Bernadetta has been teaching him how to sew, and the numerous tatters on his coat will probably serve as good practice. “But why didn’t you bring Linhardt along?”

Byleth pauses for a moment, trying to decide on what to say, and he only realizes his mistake when Claude’s eyes narrow and his gaze flicks to the nearby trees. “Hey,” Byleth snaps, flicking his wrist—the Creator Sword slices into Claude’s arm, sending him stumbling to the side. “Eyes here.”

Despite the blood spilling from his wound, Claude smiles, crooked and teasing and dangerous. “You got it.”

Beside them, Edelgard’s gotten back up, the faint glow of healing magic cleaning up her injuries; Dimitri smiles, and the trail of dried blood going down his chin makes him look several times more sinister than his usual sunny self. Byleth wishes he could help more—who knows how long those two have been fighting without rest, after all—but Claude’s drawn his sword instead of his bow, and there’s barely any time to block the swing of his blade.

“So how is Linhardt?” Claude asks, leaping back when Byleth’s hand begins to spark with fire. “Alright, I hope?”

Byleth stretches his arm out, huffs in displeasure when Claude easily dodges the fire magic. He can already feel his palm heating up uncomfortably—maybe another minute before he can cast again? Two? “He’ll be fine.”

“So you say, but he looked rather shaken.” Claude closes in again, sword scraping against the Creator Sword; Byleth moves back, adjusts his stance, twists his wrist—but Claude’s moving too, and Byleth has to abandon his attempt to knock the sword out of Claude’s grip just to duck out of the way of a blade to the face. “Like that?” Claude asks, grinning cheekily as Byleth backs away. “I’ve been working on that. Real easy, when Ignatz is always trying to disarm me with the exact same technique.”

 _Ignatz?_ Perhaps that had been the Golden Deer student from earlier. “It’s good. You could take plenty of people by surprise with that.” The Creator Sword feels weak in Byleth’s hands—he slides it back in its sheath again, then draws his knife. “A bit niche, though, isn’t it? It only works when both you and your opponent are using a sword. That move certainly wouldn’t work on someone wielding a lance.”

“Hmm, you’re right.” Claude doesn’t attack right away, instead staring in mild disbelief at Byleth’s knife.

“What?” Byleth holds the pitiful-looking knife up. “Do you think it’s any weaker than the Creator Sword?”

Claude shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “With you, By, nothing’s ever _weak._ ”

Byleth loses his knife in under a minute—the only thing he has left is what feels like enough magic to call on a Thunder spell, and the bolt of electricity knocks Claude’s sword out of his hands long enough for Byleth to tackle him to the ground and slam his elbow into Claude’s chest. Claude pushes him off, but Byleth has enough brute strength to pin his wrists down on the dirt. If he still had his knife, now would be an excellent time to level it above Claude’s neck, but he settles for awkwardly drawing the Creator Sword instead, the grip unsteady with only one hand. “Yield,” Byleth manages, breathing embarrassingly hard.

“You know this is quite the questionable position, don’t you?”

Byleth swats away the dagger Claude tries to stick into his stomach with the flat of his blade. “Do you yield.”

“Geez! You’re a real menace, aren’t you?” Claude huffs out a half-disappointed, half-amused sigh. “Fine, fine, I give up.”

Byleth steps off of Claude, pulling him up again, and looks around for his knife. Unfortunately, it’s probably been tossed away to who-knows-where, and he really doesn’t have the time nor energy to care about it enough to search more—at least it’s an affordable loss. He’s got plenty of other knives scattered in his room, anyway. “About Linhardt…”

“Hmm?”

“What were you two talking about, in the forest? You never answered me.”

Claude blinks at him, looking almost confused, before his mouth curves into that too-familiar grin Byleth wishes he had never needed to see. “But I did, By. Weren’t you listening?”

They exchange stories in the infirmary, even when Professor Manuela’s told them to hush up at least five times by now. Apparently, Ferdinand had been the first of them to fall, though the shame in that is overshadowed by how he had valiantly leapt in front of Bernadetta to shield her from a burst of fire magic meant for her. Dorothea had been incapacitated by an arrow to the leg and had been easy prey for Ingrid to defeat, though Dorothea had tried her best to charm her way out of it (she had gotten very close to escaping, at least according to her). Then after the ballista had run out of ammo, Bernadetta had scampered up a tree, scared herself to near-death when she’d run into another student sitting on the same branch she leapt for, and fallen off. Her legs are fine, just a sprain that Manuela easily heals, but she still has a vaguely haunted look in her eyes.

Edelgard’s definitely the worst out of them, though—she had started slowing down at the tail end of her last fight with Dimitri, and the multiple lance wounds she has scattered on her torso are proof of it. “But I’m fine,” she assures them, once she realizes nearly everyone in the Black Eagles are leaning forward and staring at her in a wide-eyed mix of concern and curiosity. “It was a good fight. I wouldn’t mind training with him again.”

“I do not believe that is a wise course of action, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert demurs, apparently unable to look away from Edelgard’s heavily-bandaged stomach.

Edelgard sniffs. “Hubert, are you sure you aren’t just miffed you went down like a sheet of paper when Dimitri happened to hit you with the handle of his lance?”

Hubert goes an uncharacteristic shade of bright red under his long hair—Ferdinand almost keels over from laughter.

Among all of them, Linhardt is the most uninjured, and therefore has to help Professor Manuela go around fixing the students up—Byleth, lying uselessly in his infirmary bed, waits for the ten-minute break Linhardt is allowed every few hours before sneaking away from Manuela’s line of sight and peering around the corridor, where Linhardt is curled up on a chair. “Linhardt?”

One of Linhardt’s eyes cracks open, though just barely. “Byleth. You shouldn’t be moving.”

“I feel fine.” Byleth flexes his arms to prove it, but immediately regrets it when his muscles scream in complaint—fighting non-stop evidently does not make his arms feel at all great. Maybe he should start building up his endurance more. “Are you feeling alright? You’ve been healing all day.”

“Oh, what choice do I have,” Linhardt grumbles, turning away from Byleth. That hardly stops him from approaching Linhardt and cupping his blistered hands in his own to cast a Heal spell on the delicate skin anyway. “At least Professor Manuela promised she’d get me some old books the library tried to throw away before she hid them in her office. Amazing, isn’t she? Now all that’s left for her to do is to actually pay me.”

“What were you talking about back there, with Claude?”

Linhardt pauses, sighs. His hands are alright again, but he doesn’t draw them away from Byleth as he used to—instead he turns them upside-down, gripping onto Byleth’s wrist with unusual strength. “Has anyone ever told you how much of a terrible conversationalist you are?”

“I try not to let it get to me,” Byleth says. “Will you tell me?”

Silence, again—but Byleth doesn’t push him to answer, because it’s hardly as if he’s in any hurry. Frankly, he doesn’t mind staying like this for a while longer, because the warmth of Linhardt’s skin on his is more comforting than he had expected it to be, his closeness familiar rather than stifling, his presence reassuring rather than suffocating.

Finally, Linhardt speaks. “Byleth,” he says—breathes, really, his voice too soft to pass as even a whisper, “if—just hypothetically—if you were to find yourself in a hopeless situation, where the only way you could get out of it was to—to give up something you care very much for—what would you do?”

Byleth mulls his words over for a bit before responding. “That’s too vague. Can’t you just come out and say it?”

“ _Byleth,_ ” Linhardt laughs, but the sound is so painfully miserable rather than fond, or amused, or every other emotion Byleth likes more than whatever _this_ utter despair he’s hearing is.

He scratches his cheek, forcing himself to maintain eye contact. _Why is it even hard?_ “I don’t know,” he decides. The words come out weak, unconvincing, but there’s nothing else he can think of that might help Linhardt out at all. “Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten myself into the situation in the first place.”

It’s quiet for another few seconds, and Byleth watches the way Linhardt’s expression shifts from curious to confused to—to an emotion Byleth can’t place, because he’s never seen it on Linhardt’s face before. It makes him think of an overcast sky covering the sun from view, or water slowly sliding down the drain, or how Hubert’s miasma magic makes his opponents feel—heavy, burdened, weighed down by the poison filling up their lungs.

“I see,” Linhardt says, at last. “That makes sense.”

“Lin—”

“I should be going,” Linhardt interrupts, standing up from the chair and nearly pushing Byleth onto his backside. “Professor Manuela will notice I’ve been gone for far longer than allowed, after all. Goodbye, Byleth.”

“Oh,” Byleth says, “goodbye—”

But Linhardt’s already slipping back in the infirmary, the end of his sleeve disappearing around the door.

Byleth looks down at his hands. They’re oddly cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some stuff i remember from my thought process:  
> -brain cell 1: claude calls byleth "teach" in-game... so...  
> -brain cell 2: ...so he'd have to give byleth a nickname here too, right!?!  
> -heehe linhardt von praise kink hehee  
> -if you scrolled up to reread linclaude's convo when claude said "but i did, weren't you listening" then my job here is done
> 
> next chapter: happy birthday linhardt


	10. red wolf moon (1) — “you could say that.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s just—Byleth can’t decide. It’s strange, but when others see him going inside Linhardt’s room, especially Dorothea and Petra, he gets strangely uncomfortable. He’s not even doing anything wrong, so why the nervousness? Thinking about it, he doesn’t usually visit other people, even other Black Eagles, this often. He’s never seen the inside of anyone else’s rooms. He doesn’t even know what kind of food, say, Dorothea likes, but he can name at least three of Linhardt’s favorites off the top of his head at any given moment (peach sorbet, Daphnel stew, and the infamous sweet buns). So is this behavior strange? Is it weird for him to visit Linhardt so often, or—
> 
> “Why are you just standing there,” Linhardt sighs. “Come in already, would you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [but you can make decisions too, and you can have this heart to break](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3EsAVX3gAo) _
> 
> i know i'm repeating myself but thank you for the kudos and comments ❤ every one of them mean the absolute world!!!  
> anyway this is slightly filler but it's also mostly setup for the next chapter hehe

“Ashe, have you seen Linhardt around?”

“Mm…” Ashe tilts his head in thought, absently wiping some mud off his axe. “I didn’t see him in class a while ago. Maybe he’s holed up in the library again.”

 _Class?_ Byleth almost asks, before remembering—right. Class. Because Ashe is his classmate.

It had come as a bit of a surprise, though not entirely shocking—a few days after the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion (which the Black Eagles had won, _thank goodness_ they hadn’t gone through all that for nothing), Ashe had approached Father after his seminar with the Blue Lions and asked to join his class. “I bet I could learn lots from an actual knight!” is what he had said, though Byleth interpreted it as “I want to impress Caspar too!” which sounds far more likely. Honestly, he had thought—well, actually, _everyone_ had thought Ashe and Caspar had gotten together (a concept Byleth had needed Dorothea to educate him on) after the three-way battle, and that was why Ashe transferred to their class, but apparently not.

There had also been no confession, to several of the Black Eagles’ disappointment. Caspar had been interrupted by some Golden Deer students hoping to take the two of them out while they had looked distracted, and they’d had to work together to defeat them, and so the supposed confession had never happened. Caspar had wailed about it to Linhardt for the entire next day about how he had everything planned out and maybe it was a sign from the Goddess that it just isn’t meant to be…

Wait, right, Linhardt. Byleth still has to look for him. He thanks Ashe, then heads to the library—he’d already checked there, but he figures it’s worth another visit, if only because it’s a long walk from the greenhouse and Byleth’s been taking his endurance training very seriously.

As expected, Linhardt’s not there, though Flayn is—he helps get her a book off the top shelf and listens to her chatter on about what she’s learned about the dark magic Byleth has been making slow progress on. Then he checks the dining hall (no Linhardt, but Edelgard and Monica are talking about something in unnervingly serious tones), the fishing pond (also no Linhardt, but Petra is showing Caspar how she catches fish by stabbing them with her sword), and finally the greenhouse (still no Linhardt, but Hubert is showing uncharacteristic care for a clump of brightly-colored flowers).

Eventually, Byleth just winds up in front of Linhardt’s dorm. Again. This might be the third time he’s stood here, wondering whether to knock and ultimately leaving after two minutes of contemplation. The people passing by probably find him creepy by now.

It’s just—Byleth can’t decide. It’s strange, but when others see him going inside, especially Dorothea and Petra, he gets strangely uncomfortable. He’s not even doing anything wrong, so why the nervousness? Thinking about it, he doesn’t usually visit other people, even other Black Eagles, this often. He’s never seen the inside of anyone else’s rooms. He doesn’t even know what kind of food, say, Dorothea likes, but he can name at least three of Linhardt’s favorites off the top of his head at any given moment (peach sorbet, Daphnel stew, and the infamous sweet buns). So is this behavior strange? Is it weird for him to visit Linhardt so often, or—

“Why are you just standing there,” Linhardt sighs. “Come in already, would you?”

“Oh.” Byleth blinks at him dumbly—he hadn’t even noticed the door opening, which is incredible, considering it’s right in front of him. “Sorry. Thanks.”

They step in—it’s almost as familiar as Byleth’s own room, down to the steps he has to take to avoid stepping on Linhardt’s mess. The bed is unmade, but Byleth’s never really seen it any other way. “So what are you here for?” Linhardt asks, flopping onto his bed. “It better be important, to interrupt me from my nap.”

“You look awake,” Byleth points out.

Linhardt scowls, but that’s not going to hide the way he’s obviously alight with anticipation. “Byleth…”

“Okay, sorry.” Byleth smiles, then reaches in his coat to present two teabags of Angelica tea. “Happy birthday, Linhardt.”

Linhardt stares at the teabags, then looks blandly around him. “Is that it?” he whines. Actually whines.

“That’s a bit rude of you, isn’t it.” Byleth tiptoes around the maze of books on the floor to open the dresser drawer by Linhardt’s bed and retrieve his old tea set. They’ve only used it a few times because Linhardt hates it, had mumbled about how it reminds him of his father, but he hasn’t spoken about it since. “Come on. You like tea.”

“But for my _birthday?_ ” Linhardt sighs, making a great show of dragging himself off the bed and dispassionately watching Byleth drop the teabags in the cups. “Byleth, I’ve been dropping hints all _week,_ surely you didn’t think I meant _tea…_ though it’s nice too,” he adds, once Byleth fills the cups up with hot water and the familiar aroma begins to waft throughout the room. “Thank you.”

“Fine,” Byleth grudgingly cedes, sitting on the floor in what is now his customary spot beside Linhardt’s bed, where Linhardt himself returns to curl up on. “You can research me for free. But just for today, alright? And we have to stop to get dinner too.”

“ _There!_ ” Linhardt exclaims, his sullen composure bouncing back to familiar excitement. “See, Byleth, that’s all you needed to do. Not so hard, was it? Now let me get my notes, and we can get started right away.”

Byleth doesn’t even bother arguing. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t want to.

Linhardt seems to work several times more efficiently with tea in his system, bustling about and grabbing books from his desk, beneath his bed, and (inexplicably enough) from the bathroom. He’s talking too fast for Byleth to properly understand again, but Byleth does his best to listen anyway—something about how the missing Crest Stone in the Creator Sword’s handle might be somewhere in the monastery, just waiting for Linhardt to dig it up. “And maybe,” he adds, “I can find out something about those prophetic dreams of yours.”

Byleth chokes on his tea. Linhardt watches him cough for several long seconds, face devoid of a single shred of compassion. “Prophetic dreams?” Byleth repeats, voice hoarse.

“Well, that’s what you told me back then, didn’t you?” Linhardt asks. His expression remains neutral, but Byleth can tell he’s positively smug. “When I asked how you knew about Miklan turning into a Demonic Beast. You saw it in a dream… or so you say.”

“Oh,” Byleth says. His voice sounds very far away. “So… So I did.”

Linhardt clicks his tongue. “Looks like you can’t even get your own story straight.”

“It’s not that. It’s just been a while.”

“Hm, fine.” Linhardt sits back down, taking a long sip from his tea before scrutinizing Byleth further, as if he could find the answers to his questions on Byleth’s face. “So have you had any more prophetic dreams since then? I find it hard to believe Miklan was a one-time occurrence.”

“Um…” Byleth wracks his head for something believable to say, but when he looks at Linhardt’s clearly amused expression, he supposes there’s no point in trying to fool someone who already knows he’s lying. “No. I haven’t.”

“A shame. I was hoping to find something if you had. Perhaps a pattern to these dreams of yours…” Linhardt trails off, then shakes his head. “What secrets are you hiding, Byleth? Are you some sort of time traveler who knows the future? Is that how you always manage to save the day just in time for dinner?”

“Er,” Byleth says, “no. I can at least tell you that.” The _time traveler_ part hits a little too close for comfort, but at least Linhardt’s typical dramatic flair had ruined whatever validity that inference may have had.

Linhardt tilts his head. “Then what are you?”

Byleth opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

“Maybe it’s best you don’t tell me right away, if you don’t want to,” Linhardt eventually allows, standing up again to take the Creator Sword into his hands. “It’ll make finding out that much more satisfying on my part. And it’s fun to watch you squirm.”

“I… I don’t—”

“You most certainly squirm.”

But Linhardt finally drops the subject, moving on to the mechanics behind the Creator Sword, so Byleth lets him have the final word on his supposed squirming.

They take breaks every hour or two, mostly on Byleth’s request—Linhardt instantly loses all his energy and flops uselessly on his bed until Byleth sighs and lets him continue their research session, and then Linhardt will perk back up like a puppy. It’s utterly unbearable just standing there and doing nothing while Linhardt runs a hand down his arms, or shines candlelight into his eyes like that’s not the most dangerous thing Byleth’s ever let happen to him, or (for some unexplained reason) tugs at his ears and looks disappointed when Byleth swats his hand away.

“Don’t you ever get tired of research?” Byleth asks. He’s half-lying on the floor by now, too tired to keep standing for much longer. Maybe this is serving as an endurance training session as well.

Linhardt looks down at him from his bed, where he’s sitting cross-legged and surrounded by books and papers of all subjects. Ancient Crests, Hero’s Relics, Fódlan religion… somehow they’re all meant to lead back to Byleth, though Byleth certainly has no idea how. “You don’t understand,” Linhardt tells him, but his tone isn’t accusatory. He just sounds like he’s stating a fact. “It’s not that I like research. It’s because I like what I’m researching about that motivates me to do it.”

Byleth hums in acknowledgement. “So you like me?”

The reaction is—Byleth doesn’t even know how to describe it. It had been a throwaway question, one he hadn’t bothered to think through before saying, and he had been half-expecting Linhardt to just scoff at him and continue blathering on about Crests. But instead Linhardt goes quiet, turns away from him to stare out the window—the sun is starting to go down, Byleth notices. Right. The days always do start getting shorter this time of the year.

“Sure, Byleth,” Linhardt finally says. He sounds odd, but Byleth can’t say why. “You could say that.”

“Are you…”

Linhardt looks at him again, and for a moment Byleth wonders if he had imagined the past minute, because he looks perfectly normal now. “Am I what?”

“Are you alright?” Byleth asks anyway. It’s always good to make sure. “You seemed off there.” Though if he thinks about it, Linhardt’s seemed _off_ ever since the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion, and their subsequent conversation. Is he still thinking about Claude? They’d already spoken and forgiven each other, at least according to Caspar—Byleth doesn’t miss the way Linhardt never attends the seminars Claude does, even if the subjects are topics he likes.

And Byleth honestly can’t even say how _off_ Linhardt is acting. There’s just something strange, something different, as if something Byleth had been taking for granted for months has suddenly disappeared—but he can’t look for something he hadn’t even known existed until it had gone.

Linhardt’s brow furrows. “I’m fine. I’ve been acting normally, haven’t I?”

“But…” _But you’re not,_ Byleth wants to say. _Something’s strange, something’s off, something’s missing—_ but Linhardt would probably just give him a confused look at that, and Byleth wouldn’t blame him, because he doesn’t even understand his own reasoning. Linhardt’s acting much the same as ever, hasn’t he? Aside from his obvious dislike for Claude now, which is just something to be expected. Completely normal. The same as always.

And yet, and _yet,_ why does it feel as if something’s missing—as if something’s blocking out the sun, casting Byleth into the dullness of shadows?

“But…?” Linhardt prompts.

Byleth shakes his head. “Never mind, it’s nothing. I must just be tired,” he says, giving Linhardt as meaningful a look as possible.

Linhardt puts on his best pitiful frown. “Do you want to leave already? I suppose I can’t _stop_ you, but then I’d be spending the rest of my _birthday_ with these _incomplete_ notes to keep me company…”

They research well into the night, predictably enough. Byleth reminds Linhardt about dinner, which he thankfully acquiesces to without needing to be dragged away from his notes—Father is there when they arrive, and he doesn’t even look surprised. “So this is where you’ve been all day?”

“Yeah.” Byleth points at Linhardt, who looks lost in thought in his plate of saghert and cream. “He was researching me again.”

“ _Was_ he.”

“It’s my birthday gift for him.”

“ _Was_ it,” Father says, sounding thoroughly unconvinced and, for some reason, more than a little disturbed. “Well, don’t let me interrupt…”

“Professor,” Linhardt pipes up, “do you have a Crest as well? Surely Byleth couldn’t have inherited the Crest of Flames from you, but maybe…?”

Father groans. “I’m not up for this conversation.”

“But Professor, it’s my _birthday…_ ”

Father rolls his eyes into the next dimension. “Yeah? And?”

Linhardt turns to Byleth and does his best to look as sad as possible. “What?” Byleth asks. “Are you expecting me to get the answers for you?”

“Goodness. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, indeed.”

It’s already late when they finish eating, but Linhardt convinces Byleth to go up to the library with him anyway. Byleth doesn’t mind, because seeing Flayn earlier today had reminded him of getting back to his dark magic studies, which Linhardt is only too happy to help with, for once.

But when they enter the library, empty and silent and completely swathed in shadows—Byleth sees the way Linhardt falters, for a moment, his hand stuttering in its movements before he manages to summon a flickering ember and light up a nearby candle. “Let’s be quick, then,” Linhardt murmurs. “I’d hate to ruin my eyes any more than I already have, reading in the dark.”

And Byleth _hates_ it, hates how this library, this safe space, has just turned into another potential threat to Linhardt, has replaced the comfort and normalcy of these shelves and tables with all the cracks and corners a murderer could hide in. What was the point of this school, if not to keep its students safe? Did the curriculum really include getting them hurt and kidnapped and used for their Crests? He thinks about the Archbishop, the way she had thanked Father for his help, so far removed and detached and _had she even mentioned Linhardt at all—_

“Byleth?” Linhardt stares at him, face half-illuminated by the weak candlelight. “Are you alright? You’ve been standing there for a while.”

Byleth shakes his head. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Did you perhaps doze off and have another prophetic drea—”

“No, I didn’t. Don’t worry. If I have another one, you’ll be the first person I’d tell.”

Linhardt laughs, and for a while the library feels a little less dark.

They pick books out—it’s mostly just Linhardt finding interesting volumes and passing them off for Byleth to carry around, though. A good chunk are related to Crests or Hero’s Relics, some of which are written in languages too old to translate or faded beyond recognition, but Byleth supposes that’s never stopped Linhardt before. They find stranger things, too, like little panels in the corners of the shelves that pop open when Linhardt presses down on them, revealing a half-dozen books and records on topics the Church has always called _taboo_ —dark magic is the common factor among all of them, and Byleth adds these to the pile, despite Linhardt’s disturbed expression. “Are you going to study _those?_ ”

“It’s dark magic, isn’t it?” Byleth returns. When Linhardt doesn’t respond, staring wordlessly down at a book on necromancy, he adds, “I’m learning it to know how to protect you, Linhardt. I’m not going to use it to hurt others.”

Linhardt pulls away from him, and the sight hurts more than Byleth wants to admit. “I’ve said this before, but I think it needs reiterating. You are a strange one.”

“Is it so strange?” Byleth looks at him. “To want to protect you?”

“I don’t—I don’t need _protecting,_ ” Linhardt grumbles, stalking further from the shelf. Byleth sets the stack of books down on a nearby table to close the secret panel. “You don’t have to baby me through everything, Byleth.”

“But—” Byleth stops, swallows. _But I promised,_ he wants to say; _I promised I’d fight for you, I promised I’d protect you._ He looks at Linhardt, sometimes, and remembers his locked room door those months ago—he looks at Linhardt and remembers a shaking voice, bloodied palms. Is that wrong? Should he stop?

Linhardt turns around. He looks tired, for the first time since they’ve started researching. “What is it?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Byleth tells him, because it’s the truth.

He sighs. Looks down. “I can’t always rely on you to be there, Byleth,” Linhardt murmurs. “You may be a student now, but someday you’ll go back to being a mercenary. Someday I’m going to go back to my father and inherit his title. Someday,” he says, voice but a breath now, “you’re going to leave. You won’t be there to fight my battles for me. And then what?”

“But I—” Byleth has to pause, has to breathe before he can speak again—has talking always been this hard? Have words always been this difficult, this complicated, to let loose into the air? “But I won’t leave you. I—”

“Please,” Linhardt whispers, “don’t make promises we both know you can’t keep.”

Byleth flicks through a book. He hasn’t been processing anything since the first page, but he isn’t particularly trying to anyway.

They had parted at Linhardt’s doorstep. Linhardt had mumbled a thank-you for the research, and Byleth had wished him another happy-birthday, and then the most awkward ten seconds of Byleth’s life had passed in silence between them. Then Linhardt had sighed, shaken his head, and muttered goodnight before stepping in his room and closing the door, letting Byleth’s own goodnight go unheard. He had brought all the library books inside with him, save the ones hidden in the secret panel—those he’d left in Byleth’s arms, the thick tomes oddly heavier by themselves than they had been with several other volumes.

So now he’s reading them. Well, skimming them, really. Or—maybe he’s just looking at the illustrations by this point. The candle he’d lit up with a pathetic spark of fire isn’t helping him much with the minuscule text, and his mind refuses to focus on the book anyway.

It’s been Linhardt’s voice playing on repeat in his head for a while now. _Don’t make promises you can’t keep… someday you’re going to leave._ And what does it say about them, that Byleth can’t even refute the words? There’s no pretending they’re not true, after all—he was a mercenary, and he’ll go back to being a mercenary. He may not know when, but he will. And then they’ll leave the monastery, and he won’t train early in the morning with Petra anymore, or tend to the flowers in the greenhouse with Dorothea, or go over battle strategies with Edelgard and Hubert, or listen to Ferdinand give him a run down on the noble families, or even just knock on Bernadetta’s door every so often to make sure she’s alright in there, or… or…

Or Linhardt.

Byleth can’t even pick a memory to associate Linhardt with most, because there are too _many_ —reading in the library, practicing their magic, having tea together—his hand stutters over the book’s yellowed pages, and suddenly his room feels too hot, too cramped, too dark, and he can’t stay still, needs to get up, so he does. He paces the length of his dorm, chases the shadows away, kicks at the dirty laundry and mismatched weapons lying on the floor. He’s become just as messy as Linhardt, hasn’t he, leaving all his things scattered around the room, as if he’s never going to have to pack them up someday and leave—

He sits himself back down. Stares at the still-open book. Flips through it again.

Byleth doesn’t know how long it takes until he turns a page and his eyes land on the disturbing image of a man having his face—he peers closer— _melted off._ The image seems to be hand-drawn, ink having smudged on the page before it, and so it’s barely understandable, but the pain in the man’s expression is so vivid, so visceral, that it’s still clear even with black sludge covering half his face. Byleth traces the faded lines of the image with his finger, lifting his hand up to see his skin stained with decades-old ink.

 _Mire,_ the heading reads. _Versatile. Works even for enemies too far for normal magic. Reduces defenses. Melts armor (fastest), stone, skin, bone (slowest), possibly more. Often lethal. Can be mixed with other magic._

Byleth reads the records the unnamed author had messily scribbled—dozens of unfortunate victims had served as test subjects in the early discovery and creation of this spell. It had only been a few years ago that the use of Mire as a torture device for prisoners had been forbidden, though dark mages continue to practice it anyway. There are instructions on how to cast it, almost illegible in the haste it had been scrawled in, but Byleth’s long grown used to awful handwriting—he peers at the words, mouths them silently, tastes something dark and poisonous beneath his tongue.

 _I’m not going to hurt anyone with it,_ he had said. _I’m learning it to protect you._

But Linhardt doesn’t need protecting, does he?

It’s late enough that Byleth has to light up a small ball of fire to see the way to the training grounds—he tries making it hover beside him of its own accord, like what Hubert had done in the underground dungeon before, but Byleth ends up having to catch it back in his palm before it falls to the ground and sets the monastery ablaze. When he arrives, the training grounds are empty—of course they are, no one in their right mind would be up in the middle of the night, and that’s the exact reason Byleth had felt safe enough bringing a forbidden book on forbidden dark magic out anyway, but—

He almost wishes someone were here with him, to sit beside a pillar and tease him for making mistakes like he’s grown accustomed to.

The first few tries go about as terrible as Byleth had expected—sometimes a typical burst of fire magic, or a crack of thunder, or a weak Nosferatu spell, or sometimes just nothing at all except the taste of dirt in his mouth. But then he murmurs the incantation again, and somehow he knows this time it’s different—there’s a murky darkness in the air that travels down his spine and through his arms as he speaks, so unlike the usual heat before fire or static before thunder, and then—

Something leaps out of his palms, too fast to identify. His fifth training dummy of the night jerks, shudders, and begins to dissolve. A familiar stench Byleth recognizes from the Miasma spell wafts above him.

He lights a candle, steps nearer. The training dummy is little more than a pile of goop now, bubbling and sizzling on the floor. _Stop,_ Byleth thinks, and the sludge ceases all movement— _move,_ and it slithers across the ground to come to a stop before another training dummy Byleth had dragged out earlier. _Go,_ and this time he watches as the slime leaps up, enlarging to twice—no, thrice its size, enveloping the dummy in seconds.

It melts too fast for Byleth to properly observe, but he sees enough to know he’s cast it properly, at least. _Leave,_ he commands, once the second training dummy is gone, too. The sludge shivers and seems to dry up into nothing, leaving only that same rotting stink behind. Byleth sniffs the air—it’s a far cry from the fragrance of tea, certainly, and it reminds him of the busier cities he and Father and the mercenaries sometimes visited, where smoke clogged the air up too much to breathe properly in.

He gets another training dummy, holds his arms out again—but all that leaves his palms is a spark of fire magic, and Byleth sighs.

For a while, his only company is himself, a dying candle, a quickly-dwindling supply of training dummies, and the moon. Byleth’s not sure if the sludge he manages to cast every five failed spells counts, but it feels a little like his personal killing pet. It feels awful having to dispel it, too, especially since it always seems to make a big show of shriveling up like if plants were liquid. But he gets better at casting Mire as the night passes, the gap between mistakes growing further and further until it’s a complete absence entirely. He takes a deep breath, moves to relight the candle, and pauses when he realizes he doesn’t have to—the sun isn’t out yet, but there’s already enough light to see his surroundings by.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

Byleth whirls around, hands reflexively calling up the Mire spell, the action muscle memory by now—but lets his arms drop back down to his sides when he sees who it is. “Sothis.”

Sothis sniffs, her nose scrunching up at what must undoubtedly be the now-thick stench of sludge. Byleth’s grown used to it enough that he barely even smells it anymore—he wonders if it’s the sort of smell that follows him around like a second shadow. “You should be glad I was asleep when you presumably started this, because I would have torn your ear off dragging you back to your room. What in the name of this goddess’ green Earth are you doing?”

“Well—”

“ _Practicing dark magic,_ ” she barrels on, evidently not having been expecting an answer. “Do you think it’s all fun and games, that school of magic? Perhaps it is, until your veins run black with darkness and your skin starts peeling away and your lungs fill up with the same sludge you look so proud of—are you even listening to me?”

Byleth manages a slow nod. “Lungs filling up with mire.” _Though if that happens, I could just tell it to leave me._

“You could just tell it to _leave you?_ ” Sothis parrots. Byleth hides a wince—sometimes he really forgets they share a brain. “Are you sure you’re using that brain of ours right now? Because I seem to be in full possession of it. Even when I was _asleep._ ”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” Byleth asks, surprising himself with how small his voice comes out. Whenever Father berates him for something, Byleth usually just stays silent and nods whenever appropriate, so he’s never heard himself speak like this before. It’s embarrassing, that’s for certain. “It’s… only a little bit, anyway. It’s not like I want to be a dark mage or anything.”

Sothis sighs, and when she speaks again, her voice has softened to a more reasonable and much less shrill volume. “I am… concerned, Byleth. The Nosferatu spell is dangerous enough as it is, with you having made it your own hybrid of half-dark and half-faith magic. But this _Mire_ spell… it isn’t anything but pure dark, is it?”

Byleth doesn’t need to answer; Sothis already knows, anyway. He turns away instead to face the last training dummy from the storage room, stretching his arms out—the magic comes much easier than it had hours ago, and Byleth can feel every little bit of _darkness_ it holds. Thin individual strings of black sludge snake out from his shoulders and elbows and wrists, all joining to coalesce in his palms and form the now-familiar slime that flies straight for the training dummy, swallowing it up in blackness. Even the time it takes to completely dissolve its target has sped up, only needing a blink and a half before there’s nothing but the puddle of goo at his feet, curling around his legs like a friendly cat at the monastery.

“Would you look at that,” Sothis dryly remarks, “you really have made a pet out of it.”

“It can do tricks,” Byleth tells her. _Hide,_ he commands, and the mire obeys, sinking into the cracks of the training grounds’ floor until there’s little evidence it had even been there at all. _Now come out,_ and it leaps out several feet away from where it had originally hidden. “See? That’s it, though. If I want more, I’ll have to—”

He shuts his mouth so quickly, he feels his teeth clatter. _I’ll have to practice,_ Byleth had been about to say—he turns around to face Sothis again, hoping she hadn’t caught the slip-up, but her narrowed glare tells him he’s got no such luck. Right. Same brain. But instead of calling him out on it, all Sothis does is sigh and shake her head. “Listen, I… can’t stop you from doing this. But please tell me this is what you really want to do?”

Byleth feels his brow furrow. “What do you…?”

“You aren’t just doing this because of that boy, are you?”

“Boy?” Byleth blinks. “You mean Linhardt?”

Sothis rolls her eyes. “No, I mean the _other_ boy you spent half of today with letting him have his way with you— _yes,_ I mean Linhardt. That conversation earlier seemed absolutely awful. You’re not drowning yourself in dark magic training as some unhealthy coping mechanism, are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Byleth slowly tells her, even if there’s a curdling feeling in the pit of his stomach that says he does. Sothis doesn’t look entirely convinced, so Byleth adds, “I’m just curious, Sothis. And—maybe we can find something, can’t we? About—About Jeritza, or whoever else he’s allies with, the people who hurt Linhardt…”

Sothis frowns. “Fine, I—I suppose you’re right. You did say you were going to study more on dark magic—though I never thought you meant _study_ it, but… just…”

She trails off, and Byleth steps forward. “I can stop, if you really want,” he offers. He even dispels the mire that had been steadily, harmlessly wrapping itself around his right leg, though its absence leaves an uncomfortable chill.

“No, that’s not…” Sothis sighs. “Keep yourself safe, will you? If nothing else.”

Byleth nods. That, at least, is something he can agree to. “I promise.”

“Be careful with that word,” Sothis warns, sounding a little more like her usual proper self. “You wouldn’t want to make the same mistake with it.”

“I’m—”

“Byleth?”

Byleth nearly jumps out of his own skin, and mire leaps into his palms like a loyal guard—but it’s just Petra at the entrance of the training grounds, and it takes him a long second to realize it must be late (or early) enough that she’s already here. “Oh. Petra. Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Petra waves a hand at the sludge, dripping onto the stone. “May I ask what those are?”

“Th—er—this? It’s—”

“It is dark magic, is it not?” She tilts her head to the side. “I may not know much about it, but I know enough. That must be Mire.”

“Um. Yes.” Byleth looks down at it. It’s significantly less threatening-looking to him now, after hours of practice and teaching it simple commands, but he wonders how it must look to others, to Petra. Does he look like Hubert—dangerous, dark, someone to stay away from? “I thought it would be interesting to… to study it.”

Petra isn’t even looking at him anymore; she’s heading towards a rack of training swords instead, tightening her braided hair. “I see,” she answers easily, not a hint of—of anything but curiosity in her voice. “Hubert does not like to train with others, so it would be a good learning experience to do so with you! May I?”

“Oh,” Byleth says, again. “You want to?”

Petra gives him a confused look. “Is that not what I have just said?” She swings one of the training swords around a few times, then nods at him with a smile. Nothing’s changed about her smile, as genuine and Petra-like as ever. “Come on. Do you think I am scared, of your dark magic?”

Something tugs at the corners of Byleth’s lips. “No. Let’s go.”

It’s been a while since Byleth’s seen a demonic beast up close. He wishes it had stayed that way.

These wolves are different from whatever Miklan had turned into—they’re closer to the animals they resemble, with the same weak points and the same fighting style Byleth’s grown used to taking down over the years in the wilderness, hunting for their meat. But Byleth’s never had to take on two wolves several times their normal size, together, _by himself._

He swings the Creator Sword, hacks off a chunk of fur from one of the wolves’ legs and uses the time it takes to yowl in pain to scramble up onto the healing tile he remembers Kostas had abused all those months ago. The other wolf pounces at him, but the rock formation surrounding the healing tile makes it too tight for the beast to fit—Byleth stretches his arm out to cast the first spell that comes to mind, and a thin stream of fire sends the monster hissing and retreating.

So he’s safe—at least for now. When the wolves do nothing but growl and circle the structure, Byleth lets himself fall on the healing tile, pressing a palm on the dust-laden runes—it lights up with the faint glow of faith magic, but it’s weaker than Byleth had been hoping for. His legs, at least, aren’t so sore from the trek to the canyon, but not much else; before this, he had driven off a third wolf with a lucky hit on its snout, but it had left a scratch on his arm that still flows free with blood the magic does nothing to staunch.

“Are you alright?” Sothis frets, hovering above his head like a worried bird. “How awful… I hadn’t thought this place would be a den of demonic beasts! Just one or two would have been bearable, but…”

Byleth blanches—he had forgotten about the rest of the beasts at the mouth of the canyon, a pair of giant birds (hawks? eagles?) and some other reptilian creature Byleth hadn’t been able to get a good look at before he had run for his life. He wonders if they’ve gone elsewhere and left the exit unguarded, but somehow he doubts that. For one thing, the beasts probably have enough semblance of intelligence to not let their prey go free; for another, he knows his own luck well enough to not bother hoping.

A howl—one of the rock pillars groans beneath a wolf’s heavy claw. The same happens on the other side, only this time cracks spiderweb across the rock’s surface, and Byleth can feel his thoughts racing a mile a minute— _this is old stone, it won’t last long under more pressure_ —but he doesn’t even have enough time to plan what to do next before a wolf slams against the rock formation again, and Byleth dives out of the way as the rock pillar topples onto the space he had just been standing on, burying the healing tile under debris.

And exposing him to the snarling wolves.

Byleth runs—he’s not so confident as to willingly take them both at once. But the wolves are faster, and one of them catches up to him in two bounds, clawing at his legs and sending pain shooting throughout his lower body. Byleth fumbles for a Divine Pulse, trying to muster enough concentration to call on that power, but he can’t take another step—he drops to his knees, turns around and tries to call up a spell, any spell—his vision fills up with gaping jaws, fangs dripping with saliva—

“ _Byleth!_ ”

Something splatters across his face, and it takes Byleth a moment to realize it’s the beast’s black blood, not his own—there’s a hand axe embedded within its mouth, piercing its tongue, and the wolf is screeching in pain, staggering backwards and crashing into the wolf behind it. Edelgard is there, pale hair whipping behind her as she runs across the craggy ground and then _leaps,_ yelling as she swings her steel axe down to sink into the wolf’s eye.

More blood—it spurts out of the wound like a fountain, showering both Byleth and Edelgard in the thick, viscous liquid. The wolf falls, and Edelgard has just enough time to pry her axe out of the wolf’s eye before the second one leaps for her. Byleth calls up a thunder spell, and the electricity arcs through the air to slam against the advancing wolf, distracting it long enough for Edelgard to return to Byleth’s side. “What are you doing here?” Byleth asks.

“A _thank you_ would be nice,” Edelgard huffs.

“Thank you, Edelgard.”

“Better. You’re welcome. Now—” She pulls him to the left just as the wolf charges for them, kicking up debris in its wake. “What are _you_ doing here, Byleth? We saw you leaving the monastery gates without saying anything, and you know how dangerous it is to be out alone wearing the Officers Academy uniform. Though it seems you’ve attracted a different kind of danger…”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Byleth tells her, doing his best to sound as serious as possible. It’s hard, though, when the wolf veers towards them and there isn’t enough space to dodge—Byleth swings the Creator Sword at its front paws instead, knocking the snarling wolf off-balance and allowing Edelgard to make a rush towards its neck. She gets close, but not close enough to leave a lethal wound—the wolf shakes her off just in time, and her axe only manages to cut into one of its claws.

There’s no time for either of them to continue their conversation right away; the wolf is moving already, clawing at them and sending Edelgard stumbling onto the ground, blood dripping from a scratch on her torso. Byleth almost trips over himself in his rush to her side, casting a hasty Heal spell on the injury—his own stomach stings with pain, the first time he’s felt someone else’s wound aside from Linhardt’s, but he shakes it off and lets Edelgard push him down for her to block the wolf’s quickly-descending claw with her axe. Byleth grabs the Creator Sword and swings it upwards, slashing at the underside of the wolf’s paw—it shrieks and backs away, giving the two of them time to scramble backwards as well.

 _How had Edelgard killed the first one?_ Byleth thinks, cycling through a list of spells he has on hand. _She’d aimed for… the eye…_

Sparks fly out from Byleth’s palms. He doesn’t think about it, because there’s only time to act—the wolf howls as it totters back, its left eye sizzling from thunder. Edelgard huffs out what sounds like a laugh as she runs towards it, deliberately ducking into its now-blind spot, and leaps up to slice into the wolf’s neck. Blood spills all over her, staining her white hair black.

The wolf falls with a whimper. Edelgard splashes into a puddle of blood, nearly slipping before Byleth hurries to steady her. “Well?” she asks, flicking her wet hair behind her shoulder. “Should I still not be here, Byleth?”

Byleth shakes his head, but he can feel a smile coming on anyway. “Fine. Thank you, again. But why…?”

“Why did we go after you?” Edelgard frowns. “We were worried, of course. And aren’t you glad we came here after all? I can’t even begin to imagine how you would have tried fighting off the rest of those beasts at the—” She pales. “The others!”

“Others?”

“Hubert, and Ferdinand, and Dorothea and Bernadetta—they’re all still there! I ran ahead because I saw you cornered by those wolves, but the rest—” Edelgard whirls around, her hair nearly smacking Byleth in the face, and takes off at a run for the southern bridge. “Hurry! We need to help!”

She’s already getting too far to answer the rest of the questions Byleth still has, so he has no choice but to run after her—they cross the bridge far faster than Byleth had earlier, and he skids to a stop when he sees the battle. The large birds are sending up gusts of wind through their beating wings, pushing Ferdinand too far back to attack and throwing Bernadetta’s arrows off-course. This far, Byleth can’t see Hubert and Dorothea, but he can smell the faint sting of miasma and the much stronger scent of ozone before a thunderstorm. _Wait—stronger? But—_

Edelgard doesn’t hesitate—she leaps into the fray, blocking one of the birds’ talons with her axe and giving Ferdinand an opening to thrust his spear into the bird’s thigh. It shrieks, a high, piercing noise, and flaps madly away from them—its wing smacks into Ferdinand, and Byleth has to see Edelgard drop her axe and run for him, but she’s too slow and it’s too late and he’s falling, falling down the canyon edge—

Byleth blinks. Focuses. Closes his eyes. He rushes forward before he opens them, and calls down a jolt of thunder to knock the bird down to the ground, its wing narrowly missing Ferdinand this time. But Byleth can’t help running over to grab his arm and drag him away from the canyon’s edge anyway. “Byleth!” Ferdinand exclaims, not looking the slightest bit surprised about what must be the uncharacteristic arm-grabbing. “You are alright!”

“You—yes, I am,” Byleth weakly replies. He’d almost said _You, too—_ and he’d rather not Ferdinand catch onto that and start thinking he has prophetic dreams, too. “Please don’t fight so near the cliff. It’s worrying.”

Ferdinand looks down, as if he hadn’t noticed the edge, and nods shortly. “Apologies. The opening presented itself, and I—”

“Move!” Edelgard yells—they both do so without thinking, and the bird swoops down on the space they had just been standing on. Byleth holds his hands out for another Thunder spell, but his attention wavers, drawn by a terrified scream—he looks behind him, sees Bernadetta cowering behind a rock, her quiver empty, the other bird descending down _fast fast too fast—_

Something crashes down on the bird from above, and it drops like a stone. Byleth looks up.

Storm clouds are gathering above them. Not too far away stands Dorothea, her palms smoking with electricity. _Ah,_ Byleth thinks, _so that’s why it smells so strong._

He turns to the bird still cawing and clawing at Ferdinand and Edelgard, despite wounds scattered across its body and one of its wings bent at a sickening angle—Byleth calls on the static in the air, the electricity gathering in his hands, and lets it loose.

For the next few seconds, he almost regrets it—the blast is the loudest thing he’s ever heard in his life, sending him staggering backwards and nearly off the canyon surface. He hears nothing, only registers the ringing in his ears, the burn in his palms, the thick stench of smoke filling the air, and when he finally opens his eyes—when had he even closed them?—it’s to see the bird falling from the air, crashing down on a space Edelgard and Ferdinand hastily vacate and sending up a cloud of dust.

Smoke rises up in plumes from its body. Around them, the rain begins to fall, lightning flashing up above.

Dorothea hurries over to Byleth first, even though she should still be dizzy, or disoriented, or hearing nothing but a steady line through her ears—Byleth’s only vaguely aware she’s casting her Heal spell on his hands when he smells roses above the ozone. She waves her hands over his ears, and his hearing pops painfully back into existence. “There you go,” she sighs, breath ghosting over his face. “What made you think you could control natural thunder, you silly thing?”

“Wh…?”

“Look, now you’ve gone and burnt yourself,” Dorothea pretend-coos. When she finishes healing, she pushes his hands back to his chest, and Byleth tentatively looks down at the skin—nothing that will look out of place beside the multitude of scars already there, he supposes. “How will you hold Linhardt’s hand like that?”

Byleth turns away. “What does he have to do with this?”

“Oh.” Dorothea blinks, then moves back into his line of sight to tenderly touch his hands again, the faint warmth of a weak Heal spell trickling into his skin. “I was teasing, Byleth, I’m sorry. But did something happen?”

“Why would anything have happened?” Byleth returns, but he keeps his voice as neutral as always this time—his previous question had been dangerously close to a snap, and he doesn’t want Dorothea to think he’s mad at her. Why would he be mad, anyway? It’s not like she did anything. So he’s not mad, really. But then why is there an odd feeling in his chest, like something’s curling around his lungs and squeezing too tight for him to breathe?

Dorothea doesn’t get to respond, though Byleth finds he wouldn’t have cared either way—Edelgard approaches them, followed by the rest of the students. Hubert’s exhausted, Bernadetta looks pale, and even Ferdinand’s boundless energy seems to have reached its limits. “Everyone’s alright?” she asks.

“Did you take a mud bath, Edie?” Dorothea gawks instead.

Edelgard shakes her head, but there’s a smile on her face that Byleth’s only ever seen with the Black Eagles. “I’ll explain later. Maybe it’ll make a riveting story. Come on, we should get home before Professor notices and blows a fuse again…”

“And before this storm gets worse,” Ferdinand adds, having unbuttoned his jacket to lift over his head before he seems to realize something and offers it to Dorothea. Dorothea gives him a long, contemplative look before she finally smiles and accepts it; Ferdinand looks elated beyond measure. From a distance, Hubert watches them with a look of mixed confusion and disdain. Bernadetta frets over the beast blood Edelgard’s still drenched in, who assures her the rain will wash it off.

Byleth breathes in deep, smells ozone beside rain and blood—and something else he can’t quite pinpoint. Something dark and heavy and invasive, like…

Byleth whirls around the same time he sees Hubert move—something roars, the kind of sound that reverberates throughout the canyon and chases birds off the branches of dead trees. Byleth opens his mouth, tastes the sharp tang of poison on his tongue as miasma blankets the demonic beast that comes charging out from behind the tall rock formation—“Hubert—”

The miasma barely slows the beast down—it rushes straight for them, still roaring as it raises a claw in the air, and Hubert won’t _move_ and Byleth realizes, halfway through running towards him, that he’s standing far from the rest of the Black Eagles— _no, no, no_ —

He flings his arms out, and knows trying to cast another Thunder spell now when he’s so winded is asking to black out in the middle of the canyon—so Byleth grabs the next spell he thinks of, and feels that telltale hiss of murky shadows.

Sludge splatters across the beast’s face, obscuring its vision, and it misses tearing Hubert into shreds by an inch. _Kill,_ Byleth desperately commands, grabbing Hubert’s wrist and pulling him away from the beast. “What are you doing?” Byleth asks—“Why weren’t you moving?” _I don’t want to see you die!_

Hubert wrenches his arm out of Byleth’s grip, but he’s moving away and not towards the beast, and that’s what matters. “If someone has to die,” he growls, “I am always prepared to—”

“ _No,_ ” Byleth interrupts, watching how Hubert’s expression shifts from cold, hard determination into shock. He’s never seen Hubert look like this before, when all Byleth really knows about him is hidden in shadows. “No one ever has to die. No death is ever necessary. Don’t ever try to sacrifice yourself again!”

There’s no time to listen to whatever Hubert says, if he says anything at all—Byleth turns around to see the mire seeping into the cracks of the beast’s scales, and it thrashes wildly around, knocking rock structures around it. Byleth holds his arms out, closes his eyes, feels the sludge eating away at the beast’s insides. It’s several times slower than with the training dummies, but Byleth thinks it must hurt several times more, too. _Kill,_ he commands, even when he knows he doesn’t need to— _kill it, eat it, don’t care as long as it dies._

“Byleth!” someone calls from behind. Hubert pushes his arms down, and Byleth’s concentration breaks, the mental image of the mire flickering from view. “Let… Let me,” Hubert says, his voice just barely shaking as he opens his palms and casts—

Oh. Right.

The mire that flows from Hubert’s hands is far more graceful than Byleth’s, even if there’s little physical difference he can see—it zips through the air like a bird in flight, splashing onto the beast’s face and sinking into its eyes. It happens so quickly that Byleth barely has time to blink. In one second the beast is screeching in pain, reaching up to claw its own eyes out; in the next, it falls, a pitiful whimper leaving its jaws.

Twin streams of sludge slither out from the cracks. Byleth dispels it—and almost collapses himself when the mire disappears, only to be replaced by a wave of nausea. There’s an arm around his middle—Hubert, having moved as if he had expected it. “Easy,” he murmurs. “I suppose this is the first time you’ve actually used that spell to kill a living being.”

“I…” Byleth swallows, winces at the bile he can taste at the back of his throat. “Is there a difference?”

“Why don’t you look at yourself and find out,” Hubert sighs, helping Byleth straighten up. In the distance, Byleth can hear footsteps rushing towards them, Edelgard yelling their names—the sound makes his head spin at even faster, more dizzying speed.

Byleth’s first instinct is to look at his hands, and he wonders how surprised he should be when he sees his palms blistered, his skin pale, his veins pulsing black. It’s—unnerving, for lack of a better word. As if the mire he’d summoned has gone directly back inside him, ready to follow through with his command to kill. “Is this permanent?”

Hubert shakes his head. “It will fade, in time. But only if you keep your dark magic usage to a minimum.”

“But—” _But I need it,_ Byleth almost says, before he catches himself. Why does he need it? The magic is like nothing he’s ever wielded before, that’s true, and he’s seen for himself how it can take down a demonic beast in minutes. But he doesn’t _need_ it the same way he needs the Creator Sword, does he?

So why does something prick at his skin, like an invisible itch begging him to draw that dark power out again?

Hubert gives him a look, and Byleth thinks he’s being almost pitying. But then Edelgard is upon them, nearly tackling Hubert to the ground with an uncharacteristic hug. “Why would you do that?” she cries. Byleth’s never heard her voice that loud, or high, or worried. “We talked about this! No—No sacrifices!”

“L-Lady Edelgard—”

“She’s right!” Bernadetta squeaks, voice even shriller than it usually is. “Hubert, if you d-died because of us… of us…” Dorothea has to calm her down before she bursts into tears. Even Ferdinand is giving Hubert a look that says he clearly agrees.

Hubert looks gobsmacked. “I…”

Edelgard reluctantly pries herself off of him, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts, then faces Byleth. “You too, Byleth,” she scolds, looking both cross and concerned. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you do this sort of thing too often—why did you even come here by yourself in the first place? If you were looking for something, you could have just asked us to help. We wouldn’t have said no.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down. His face feels oddly warm. Perhaps it’s the dark magic, or the exhaustion finally catching up to him. In all honesty, asking them for help had never even occurred to him—it’s something Father’s pointed out to him time and time again over the years, but Byleth always forgets in the end.

Or—maybe he doesn’t forget. Maybe he just never manages to understand at all.

Edelgard steps closer. “Well, did you at least do what you came here to do?”

Byleth manages a nod, though he doubts he’s accomplished anything at all in this canyon, aside from get everyone hurt. (Or at least five of them—it’s hard to ignore Linhardt’s absence, among others. He knows, after all, that Edelgard and Hubert had only gathered those they could find at short notice, and that the library, Linhardt’s usual haunt, is a long walk from the gates, but.

Still. Still, still, still.)

“Thank goodness,” Edelgard sighs, pressing the bridge of her nose. “Now we all need to get checked up. I hate to think about what all that magic-casting did for you three. And if we stay out here any longer, we’re all bound to come down ill. Come on.”

Hubert visits him later that day, just before Byleth’s about to nod off over his book, and drops a small drawstring pouch on his desk. “From the beast we defeated,” he says, at Byleth’s half-sleepy, half-confused look. “You’re the only one who’ll get any use out of it, with your sword.”

“What do you…” Byleth tugs the pouch open and peers inside—the glint of something dark and metallic winks back up at him. Umbral steel. “Oh.”

“You’re welcome.” Hubert gives his book a curious look. “You are studying dark magic again.”

It isn’t a question, so Byleth decides it doesn’t need an answer. Hubert isn’t one for conversations anyway, and if Byleth doesn’t respond, he figures Hubert will leave. But when the seconds pass in tense silence and Hubert only continues standing there, hands behind his back and shrouded in the shadows cast by the candlelight, Byleth sighs and relents. “Yes. I am.”

“Don’t,” Hubert advises.

“And why not?” Byleth returns. He hopes he doesn’t sound as whiney as Linhardt gets when—

He feels his insides sour. No. Don’t think about him.

“You saw for yourself how dangerous it can be.” Hubert steps closer, looking down at the book. “Only those ready to give up their life for this endeavor can hope to persist in this study. And while you may _feel_ ready,” he adds, preceding the protest Byleth had ready on his tongue, “or that your life is of little significance—the others do not feel the same.”

Byleth wants to ask what he means, because he can’t, for the life of him, _understand—_ but Hubert only raises an eyebrow and Byleth holds the words back. Because—he thinks he does understand, if only a little. Because he knows Father cares for him, for one; Byleth’s not so much of a fool to not know that. But it’s something he’s known for so long by now that it feels like second nature, to care for Father and be cared for by him, and to welcome the few hours they get to spend in silence fishing together at the pond or having dinner whenever their schedules line up, that Byleth’s grown used to thinking no one else is going to care about him.

Maybe he’s right, in one way—he’s never going to care about anyone else like he cares about Father. And he thinks the reverse works the same, too.

But he’s never really considered the idea that others will care about him, will value his life more than he does himself, will miss him if he leaves—and.

It’s not a bad feeling.

“I can’t stop studying it now,” Byleth says.

“I know,” Hubert, surprisingly, responds—Byleth can see his gaze drifting across the pages of the book. “I’ve been where you are, once. It feels like a drug, does it not? The need to cast dark magic again and again until it begins to drown out all other spells.”

Byleth turns back down to the book and turns a page. _Banshee,_ the heading reads. “So you understand.”

“I try.”

“Do you…” Byleth swallows. “Do you know what I should do, then?”

Hubert shrugs. He makes the careless gesture still look somehow sinister, as mysterious as the rest of his movements. “I have heard the best counter to dark magic is faith. Casting both in equal moderation helps balance the side-effects of the dark, as far as I know.” He turns on his heel at this, stepping further into the shadows as he walks until Byleth can barely see him anymore. “Try spending more time with whoever gave you that book. I fear for the rest of our sanity, if you two continue dancing around each other like this.”

“Wh—”

But the shadows are still, and Hubert’s already gone. Byleth hadn’t even heard the door close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- “…while Linhardt runs a hand down his arms, or shines candlelight into his eyes like that’s not the most dangerous thing Byleth’s ever let happen to him, or (for some unexplained reason) tugs at his ears and looks disappointed when Byleth swats his hand away.” = lin was looking for scales, slit pupils, and pointed ears LOL  
> \- "but byleth can't even learn dark magic!!" i have taken canon into consideration and elected to ignore it. follow your dark magic dreams.
> 
> next chapter: remire village


	11. red wolf moon (2) — “you make it look so easy.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His memories are murky, but Byleth remembers Remire Village.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [every step, every move, i see death coming after you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kss6bbq3aVM) _
> 
> thanks for the kudos & comments as usual ❤ this chapter is still at 9k but it felt a lot longer while i was reading it for edits lol .... anyway please enjoy! the mood shifts here are. intense.

His memories are murky, but Byleth remembers Remire Village.

He and Father and the rest of the mercenaries had visited the place more than once. It’s small and homely, the kind of town where everyone knew everyone else and people traded goods rather than bought and sold. The mercenaries were always happy to help the local blacksmith. Father’s left his fair share of unsettled tabs at the bar. Byleth remembers helping an old woman plant flowers in her garden some time back, and visiting again after another few years had passed—the woman had gone, and the house was empty, but the plants and flowers had run wild through the garden and over the walls, consuming every inch of space there was.

He looks around now, and sees the blacksmith’s forge up in flames, the bar reduced to a pile of burning debris, the woman’s house—

“Don’t,” Sothis whispers. She’s still as incorporeal as ever, but Byleth leans into the hand she places on his shoulder anyway. “Focus, Byleth. Go—your father is calling.”

Byleth swallows and turns, stepping around miniature fires as he returns to the group. Father is at the center of the Eagles, clearly having just finished directing them on what to do—the villagers unconsumed by whatever disease seems to have spread are scattered throughout the village, and it’ll take all of them to comb through the place and ensure no one gets left behind. “You and I will go wherever we think best, alright?” Father tells him, jabbing his thumb in Byleth’s chest. “We know the layout of this village as well as the monastery. But don’t jump into trouble if you don’t have to, and focus on saving people, not killing them, for once. Got it?”

He raises his voice at the last part, and the students return various cries of affirmation before splitting up into the same groups from their previous mission several months ago—Edelgard with Hubert, Dorothea with Petra and Ferdinand, Caspar with Ashe and Bernadetta and…

This time, Byleth sees it—that elusive flash of blue, the glimpse of a color he’s been trying to catch for days. But dark hair obscures it from view, and Linhardt disappears into the western side of the village before Byleth can think to call his name. _And then what, anyway?_ he asks himself. _Would I join their group? Talk to him about what happened? In the middle of this incident? Get a hold of yourself._

His inner voice is starting to sound unnervingly similar to Sothis. Byleth shakes the thoughts away, and nods at Father—Father nods back, squeezing his shoulder. “I’m trusting you on this, kid.”

“Father—”

“I’m trusting you _won’t_ chase after danger, and you _won’t_ get hurt because you tried taking on a horde of these villagers on your own,” Father interrupts, looking down at him from atop his horse. Byleth wants to huff, but the sternness on Father’s face softens, and he moves his hand to ruffle Byleth’s already-messy hair. “I know you work best on your own, but still. I’ll be right here for once, got it? Not like every other time. So please.”

“I…” Byleth looks down, scuffs his boots across the stone street, and a memory rises unbidden from the depths of his mind—he’s eight years old, standing in a busy town not much different from this one, being scolded by Father for carelessly waving a knife around and ending up cutting himself with it.

Simpler times, he remembers. He wishes, now more than ever, that anything could be fixed by a lecture, some bandages, and a lesson on how to wield knives. “I promise. And I’m… sorry.”

“Now’s not the time for apologies, is it?” Father asks—Byleth looks back up to say something, but he’s already riding off into the center of the village, the squires he had brought from the monastery following close behind.

In any other town, Byleth would take a path at random and run until he inevitably bumped into someone in need of saving. But this is Remire Village, where a buried memory unearths itself down every road, where Byleth’s faulty sense of direction fails to fail, and he can’t be bothered to think any further—he ducks down a side-street the village children always played in and hopes none of them are there now.

Flames lick at his skin as he moves, and the stench of smoke clings to him like a fog, dragging his every step down. Byleth checks the market, the clinic, the park—but they’re all empty and too burnt down for any of the villagers to think of hiding in them anyway. He runs and runs, wishes desperately he had studied the Blizzard spell to put the fires out with, runs and runs and runs—still there’s nothing, as if he’s already too late, as if there’s no one left for him to save—

“Focus,” Sothis whispers, clutching at his shoulders hard enough that Byleth can actually feel it. “Just focus, Byleth.”

There’s no one around, so Byleth takes a deep breath, ignores the smoke that curls into his lungs. “T… Thank you. Sorry.”

Sothis points at a road Byleth remembers had been the busy main street, before. “Try looking down there. I hear fighting.”

Byleth starts off at a steady run, but slows down when he sees the fight, if it could even be called that, is already over—Caspar sets his axe down, wiping sweat off his brow, while Ashe carefully drags the unconscious villager over to lean against the side of a relatively-unburnt wall. Bernadetta is nearby, seemingly scouring the area for more villagers. “Oh, Byleth,” Caspar greets, waving his free hand. “You’re sure late! I thought you were right behind us!”

His chest tightens with a sudden surge of warmth—had they assumed he would be joining them like last time, even considering their group is already crowded? “I’m actually looking for—”

Ashe points at one of the houses still miraculously standing. “Linhardt’s right there.”

“…For more villagers. But alright.”

“We’ll be going ahead, okay?” Caspar calls. “I’m sure you two will be safe together. You and Lin catch up once he’s done!”

“Oh—” _Done with what?_ Byleth wants to ask— _Don’t leave me alone with him, come back here,_ he wants to shout, but they’re already moving ahead, chattering amongst themselves. Another few seconds, and they’ve turned a corner and disappeared.

Sothis giggles beside him. “Well? Won’t you go and see him?”

_He doesn’t even want to see me._

“Oh, but you don’t know that, do you?”

_You saw what happened, didn’t you? He said—_

“Would you quit it with what he said several weeks ago,” Sothis cuts in, propping her chin up on his head and doing her utmost best to tug his hair. “You could at _least_ cooperate with him for the sake of the mission. Besides, you’re not about to leave him alone when there are rabid villagers attacking others, are you?”

She has a point, unfortunately enough—even with all the uncertainty as to what their relationship is now, Byleth feels sick just thinking about leaving Linhardt alone in a battlefield. “Fine.”

“See, was that so hard?”

The house is small, burnt in some places but somehow still mostly intact—Linhardt is near what seems to be the dining table when Byleth enters, his hands close to his chest and glowing with faith magic. “Linhardt?”

“Byleth,” Linhardt returns, giving him a slow look back before returning to—whatever it is he’s doing under the table. It’s too dark to see anything by, with the only light coming from Linhardt’s Heal spell. “Come here,” he murmurs. “I want you to look at something.”

Byleth steps closer, casting a cursory glance around the house. He can make out more mundane things—a fallen bookshelf, shards of glass from the broken window scattered on the floor—but not much else of note. Under the table, on the other hand, is… “How?”

Linhardt breaks the Heal spell on the trembling child under the table for a moment to wave a hand at an indistinguishable lump nearby—Byleth only has to catch a glance of dark-veined skin to know what it is. “We came in just as his mother was about to—to hurt him. He’s sprained his ankle, so I have to…” He trails off, then shakes his head. “Look at the body.”

“Why—”

“Just do it, would you?”

Byleth suppresses a flinch—how strange of him, to be so affected by some sharp words rather than the sharpest of blades—and does so, crouching down to cast a small Fire spell, just enough to see by. Light washes over his feet, across the floor, on to the body.

The first thing he takes note of is the cause of death—a deep, diagonal axe wound stretching from shoulder to stomach, nothing Byleth thinks anyone could survive from. Caspar’s work, definitely. But despite the body being very obviously dead, its black veins still seem to pulse with something—with darkness, with shadows, with magic Byleth can’t describe as anything but dark. He times its pulse—it’s exactly like a heartbeat.

It’s exactly like how his own veins had looked.

“Sickening, isn’t it?” Linhardt mumbles. “I’m beginning to regret not having studied dark magic as in-depth as I wanted to, because I’ve never seen anything like it. But doesn’t it resemble a sort of parasite? Though it’s still somehow alive after its host has died.”

 _A parasite…_ It sounds probable. Byleth hums in affirmation, stretching his free hand out to hover above the body’s hand. The veins there gurgle and bubble beneath the grayish skin, as if reacting to Byleth’s presence. It reminds him of—

He pauses. Thinks. Concentrates.

_Come._

The body spasms, and Byleth can see Linhardt scrambling back in shock, but he can’t focus on anything else aside from the darkness that spills out from the body’s mouth, ears, nose, eyes. When the flow stops, it gathers above Byleth’s opened palm, dripping fat globs of sludge onto the floor.

Mire. It twirls in his palm, looking almost happy.

“B… Byleth?”

He turns around, letting the mire slither back down to the ground to curl around his ankle. There’s no evil, no malice in its being—it feels just like the mire he casts himself, the one he controls as easily as if it were a part of him. And maybe, he thinks, maybe it _is._ “Is he well?”

Linhardt stares at him, eyes wide, hands shaking where they persist in the Heal spell. He’s moved his body to hide the sight from the child, curled up behind him. “W-What?”

“The child. Can he run?”

“I—yes, I think so.” Linhardt looks back down at the child, exchanges hushed words with him, then stands up to gently help the boy to his shaky feet. All his gestures are slow, tender, so unlike his usual careless movements in the monastery. For one irrational moment, Byleth’s almost jealous. “Come,” he murmurs. “We’ll get you to safety.”

The boy makes a terrified noise and clings to Linhardt’s leg. “N-No! I don’t wanna go outside, please!”

“We have to—”

“Please,” he whimpers. “Ma went out before this all started and that’s why she came home like—like—”

Linhardt sighs and bends down, wiping the tears off the child’s cheeks and smoothing his ruffled hair down. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll protect you, and you’ll be safe.” He looks up at Byleth then, gaze inscrutable, before speaking again. “It’s just a short walk from here. You’ll be out before you know it.”

“Promise?”

Linhardt pauses—momentary and barely noticeable, but Byleth fixates on that little pause, the second of silence that reminds him, of _them,_ how that word had last been used. “Promise.”

Byleth leads the way out, craning his neck to see their immediate surroundings and then asking Sothis to scout out the rest of the way—she grumbles the whole time about making her some pet bird, but comes back down with a furrowed brow. “No one on the way back, so it’s safe,” she reports, “but up ahead is…”

“Is?” Byleth prompts, when Sothis doesn’t continue, looking lost in thought.

She frowns. “ _Someone_ I didn’t expect to be there, certainly. But we should focus on the young one—we can investigate that odd one later.” Sothis tilts her head. “And I think you’d want to bring Linhardt to safety, too.”

Byleth’s eyes narrow. Someone she didn’t expect? He can’t imagine seeing someone like Professor Hanneman or Gilbert in here, but Father had seen a strange group of people retreating further back into the village, towards the town plaza. It’s an elevated surface—Byleth remembers it being high enough that he could see all the way to the center of the village from there. Curiosity itches at him, pushing him to go find out what’s going on before something happens—but he looks behind him to see Linhardt, the child clinging to his pants leg.

“This way,” he says, going back the road he had taken. Up ahead are a few squires taking care of the other villagers they had rescued before the Black Eagles had arrived; Byleth’s fairly certain the child will take some comfort in seeing familiar faces. Linhardt hesitates, but falls into step beside Byleth, and for a moment it feels a little more like just another day at the monastery.

Byleth turns away, fixing his gaze on the ground. “Linhardt.”

“What?”

 _Are you mad at me? Do you hate me now? Why won’t you look at me?_ “What did I do wrong?”

Linhardt looks up at that, brow furrowed. “What?” he says again, but he’s more confused this time.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Byleth says—or tries to say, but his voice comes out oddly small, as if it’s too scared to let itself be heard. Pathetic, really—but when he speaks again, he doesn’t sound any different. “So I must have done something wrong.”

“What? No, Byleth—” Linhardt shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, messing up the straight strands. He’s facing away from Byleth now, but Byleth can see his face, troubled and confused and guilty all at once. “No, it’s not you. It was always me.”

“What do you mean?”

Linhardt’s eyes are a stormy blue, darker than Byleth’s ever seen them. “I didn’t… It wasn’t…”

And—Byleth hasn’t done this for _ages,_ but when he moves to brush his hand against Linhardt’s, it feels like the most natural thing he’s ever done before, like he’d been born to feel this warm, living skin against his. “It’s okay,” Byleth tells him, even if it’s not, not really, because he needs to know what Linhardt means—“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

“That’s…” Linhardt looks down, and his hand twitches as if to pull away from Byleth’s. Byleth stays perfectly still, doesn’t grab his wrist or move back or anything—and Linhardt doesn’t move either, just keeps that tiny contact between their fingers, barely noticeable but there all the same. “Do you remember… what Claude and I were talking about, during the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion?”

They’ve been walking for a while now, and Byleth recognizes the structures around them—a little further and they’ll arrive at the exit. “I still don’t know what it was about, until now.” He can see one of the squires up ahead, jogging towards them as soon as his eyes land on the child clutching onto Linhardt’s other hand. Hector, Byleth’s mind supplies—one of Father’s favorites, an earnest, determined man.

Unexpectedly enough, Linhardt chokes out a watery laugh—it’s short and muffled behind the hand he raises to cover his mouth, but it’s… a laugh, all the same. If a little miserable-sounding. “Byleth. Listen, alright? The thing is—”

Something moves behind them, slow and stealthy—Byleth whirls around, shoving Linhardt behind him, and comes face to face with Tomas.

“Well,” Tomas says, smiling that same genial smile he’s always had, “if it isn’t my two favorite library-goers.”

“Tomas?” Linhardt stammers, pulling the whimpering child closer to his side. Byleth chances a glance behind them—Hector is close enough that they can pass off the boy to him in just another few seconds. “What are you doing here?”

Tomas sighs, and when he lifts his head to look them in the eye, there’s a dark gleam to his gaze that sends uncertain shivers down Byleth’s spine. The mire from earlier slips out from the cracks in the ground, completely ready and at Byleth’s disposal. “I’m getting a little tired of this disguise, I must say.” He smiles wide, raises his hand—

A burst of dark magic, strong enough to ruffle Byleth’s hair, his coat flapping in the generated wind—the child’s wail, Hector’s voice, Linhardt’s gasp—

When Byleth blinks, Tomas is gone, replaced by someone who looks straight out of the books on dark magic stacked in a corner of his room. The blackened veins, the soulless eyes, flaking skin and whitening hair— _this is what happens when you let your own magic overtake you,_ he hears Hubert whispering in his ear at the dead of night, _this is what you become_ —but he can’t let himself be distracted by that, because when he turns around, Linhardt is frozen in place, trembling all over as he stares wide-eyed at what had once been Tomas.

The dark mage smiles, a cruel mockery of the kind ones Tomas—is he still Tomas? had Tomas ever been Tomas at all?—wore. “So you recognize me after all, child of Cethleann,” he croons.

Byleth almost snaps his own neck looking back and forth between Linhardt and the mage. “Linhardt? What does he mean?”

“H-He… This…” Linhardt swallows, breathes, and Byleth almost feels how harsh the breath rattles down his windpipe. “Y-You were… You were there, at the library, when I…”

 _When he was taken,_ Byleth realizes—he remembers leaving Linhardt alone in the library that night, remembers waking up to an empty room and an emptier desk, remembers Ashe saying Tomas had been there, remembers asking Tomas himself where Linhardt had gone and Tomas saying _he had just left—_

Byleth has never felt intense emotion before. But now there’s a fire burning up his insides, heat searing his organs like a forest to the flame, because _this is who we’ve talked to for months, this is who lied to me, this is who hurt him, this is who hurt him—_ “Who are you?” he grinds out, drawing the Creator Sword. Behind him, Byleth can make out Hector ushering the child to safety.

“My name is Solon.” Dark magic radiates from his person, pulsating in waves—Byleth can feel it in the air, like the static before a thunderstorm. Solon smiles—grins— _sneers_ at them, mouth stretching wider than humanly possible. The skin on his lips cracks and flakes off, dissolving into black dust before they touch the ground. “The savior of all.”

Byleth hears the spell before he sees it, a screeching amalgamation of voices conjoined into one distorted shriek, taking the form of a shadowy wisp— _Banshee,_ he remembers reading, one dark night, _hinders movement, may rupture eardrums,_ and he pulls Linhardt out of the way. But then the child is screaming, the whirl of voices enveloping the boy in darkness—

Focus. He closes his eyes, opens them. Byleth shoves both of them out of the way this time, raising the Creator Sword and ready to cut the magic in half if he has to, but the voices _swerve_ away from him, moving to wrap around the child and—snaking up Linhardt’s pale, pale arm and—

Focus. Close. Open. This time Byleth stands his ground, Linhardt and the child crowded behind him, but his first swing misses and the banshee races around him, and when Byleth turns around it’s already creeping into the child’s skin—

Focus. Close. Open. His head swims.

He knows he can reach six now. He has three left.

He doesn’t know—he doesn’t—

The banshee comes screeching again, but Byleth doesn’t move, doesn’t know what to _do,_ and all he can think of is _I can't protect him, I promised but I can’t—_

Someone shoves him out of the way—Byleth grabs for Linhardt’s wrist at the last minute, dragging both him and the child with him. The magic screams in triumph, and Byleth blinks twice to clear his blurring vision—it’s eating away at someone, snaking into his ears, shrieking so loud Byleth can’t hear the squire, young Hector crying out as the shadows flood his opened mouth—

Solon raises a hand. The banshee returns to his side, and Hector falls, crumpling to the ground. For a moment, Byleth only hears the crackle of fires from afar, the child’s broken sniffling behind him.

Focus—

“Did you think rewinding time would be so easy, Fell Star?” Solon purrs, and Byleth’s eyes snap open. “We know all the cards you think you have. Time is quite the fickle thing… but it matters not to us, when we have trained ourselves for an opponent like you.” He cocks his head in the direction of Hector’s body, unmoving. “I suppose you must already have decided which one among you all is the most acceptable death.”

Rage. Searing, burning rage.

Byleth rushes him, slicing the banshee Solon commands in two with the Creator Sword—but Solon doesn’t flinch, instead casting another spell Byleth doesn’t recognize, a shapeless mass of swirling, sinuous shadows. Everything about it tells Byleth this isn’t something he can swing the Creator Sword at—instead he reaches for the next best thing he has on hand, and the mire from before splatters across Solon’s face, obscuring his vision and sending him stumbling back with a shout. The dark magic flickers, wavering uncertainly, and Byleth holds his hand out—unfortunately, it isn’t as easy to command as the mire had been, and it lashes out at him instead of bending to his will. Byleth dodges it, feeling it chasing right at his heels as he bears down on the blinded Solon—

The mire leaps back to him. Byleth almost falters in surprise—he hadn’t told it to move—but then it aims straight for his own eyes, and Byleth doesn’t have time to question how easily Solon had gained back control. He ducks to the ground and rolls out of reach of both the mire and the other spell, retreating back to Hector’s side, where Linhardt and the child had just been. Had they run? Good—he doesn’t need them to be in harm’s way any longer than they already had been.

Solon leers at him from across the small clearing—the skin on his face has been eaten clean away, exposing muscle and hints of rotting bone. “So you have studied dark magic as well.”

“Die,” Byleth spits.

“Impressive of you, to have bent my own magic to your whim so easily.” Solon lifts a single crooked finger, and the mire swirls around the digit like a miniature tornado. Even from this far away, Byleth can feel the evil radiating off of it in waves, so different from how the sludge had felt under his command. “You must have a natural affinity for it, Fell Star. Tell me, have you ever seen your skin go dark with magic?”

Byleth freezes. “How do you…”

“It’s a normal process of dark magic. In time, you will look like one of us.” Solon smiles, exposing two rows of blackened teeth. “In time, you may even _become_ one of us. Dark magic swimming in your veins… there have been cases, you must know, about mages going wild and letting their magic overtake them. Then you’d be just as big a danger to your friends as I am now.”

“No,” Byleth snaps, “you’re _lying,_ ” he says, because all he can see are the veins on the backs of his palms, black and pulsing with magic, dripping with mire that rises to strike at Edelgard, at Linhardt, at Father—at the people he promised himself he’d protect, and yet after everything, after _everything—_

He charges again, but mire wraps around the Creator Sword before Byleth can even reach Solon—Byleth feels his lips curl in a vicious snarl, an animalistic sound he’s never heard himself make before, and he lets go of the sword, letting it separate into its segments to fall back into his one hand while he opens the palm of other. The mire trembles, shivers, shudders—but it lunges for his arm, nothing but the intent to kill in what Byleth can feel of it, and he hisses as it bites at his wrist, burning the skin away so quickly that he can see muscle even after he smacks it off with the Creator Sword’s blade. The sludge falls _splat_ onto the ground, then wriggles and forms itself back together—

The pain in his wrist abruptly disappears, replaced by warmth so comforting and familiar he almost collapses. But—but no, it can’t be, he had left, _Linhardt can’t have gone back for him—_

“Byleth!”

Byleth turns. The mire leaps. He moves towards it, Creator Sword humming with power, a vibrating in the air as if he’s cutting wind itself, but he’s too _slow_ and the sludge—

Linhardt screams.

It is a sound Byleth cannot remember hearing. It is a terrible, terrified sound Byleth does not ever want to hear again, in this lifetime or the next, in all the lifetimes he has yet to live.

Focus—but no, he turns around and sees Solon’s stretched sneer, instinctively knows his last few Divine Pulses will have little effect on the outcome of this battle. Byleth runs for Linhardt instead, concentrates every single bit of magical energy he has in his person and _pulls_ at the mire splattered on Linhardt’s arm—for a moment it sears his fingers, but Byleth yells _Obey me,_ and it sinks into the ground, meek as a lamb.

“By—Byle—” Linhardt squeezes his eyes shut so tight it must hurt, and for an irrational second Byleth wants nothing more than to hold a hand over his eyes, cast a Heal spell and dry the tears beginning to gather. “Byleth, it—”

“Don’t talk,” Byleth whispers, even if the only thing he wants to say is _I’m sorry,_ wants to say _This is my fault, this is my fault, I hurt you, I couldn’t even protect you from myself._ He hunches over Linhardt’s shaking, crumpled body, steadying his trembling hands above the exposed bone of his elbow. The skin is black at the edges, deathly pale across the rest of his body, as if the mire had drained him of blood as well—and Byleth’s vision shakes for a moment, going red with rage, but he forces himself to focus. _Closer to your chest,_ he remembers Linhardt telling him, and Byleth presses the backs of his palms against where his heart is.

He focuses. Concentrates. But no—there’s no glow of faith magic, no sudden pain in his elbow where he knows he’d feel it, no wave of emotions that aren’t his. Byleth stares—Linhardt is still hurt, and his hands are still dull, and Linhardt is still, _still—_

“How does it feel, little one?” Solon is hissing from behind, his whisper carrying across the burning wind. He isn’t doing anything, as if having decided killing Byleth this way hurts so much more—and Byleth thinks he must be right, because no amount of faith magic could alleviate the piercing pain all over his body. “Watching someone die right before you with no way to stop it.”

Byleth whirls around—anger flares within his ribcage, licks up at his throat and sears his tongue. “ _What did you—_ ”

“No! Byleth, it’s not—” Linhardt’s hand, on his uninjured arm, brushes Byleth’s wrist—a feather-light touch, imperceptible if not for how hyper-aware Byleth is right now, down to the heat of the wind on his skin. “It’s not him. It’s your—” But his words are breaking, his voice fading, and his hand falls to his side—Byleth stares at his elbow where the burn is, feels his breathing involuntarily stop when he sees it spreading like a disease, veins turning dark— _no no no, please, why won’t it work, why can’t I do it—_ he cycles through his list of spells but he had never studied faith magic past Heal and—

 _Nosferatu,_ Byleth remembers. _A modified version had been used to heal patients in exchange of the healers’ health… lauded as the purest, most sacrificial faith magic… “Honestly, if those people just wanted someone to die for them, all they had to do was say so…”_

Byleth has no idea how that works. All he knows about the Nosferatu spell is its original vampiric self, as dark as dark magic can get, stealing someone else’s life away for themselves—but he remembers Linhardt telling him, _treat it as an equal, magic is something that listens,_ and Byleth knows there’s no time to think it through here, no time to worry about what he knows and what he doesn’t, only time to act.

He moves his hands, next to his heart, over Linhardt’s elbow. _Please,_ he thinks, pleads—to whom he doesn’t know, because it’s certainly not to the goddess.

For one awful moment, nothing happens, and all Byleth can see is the blackness creeping up Linhardt’s arm—

Then all the energy in his body rushes straight out of him, and Byleth buckles to the ground, only barely keeping the spell up—the light from his hands is blinding, and he can hear Solon’s shocked cry, Linhardt’s weak gasp—

And then nothing. The light fades, Linhardt sucks in a deep breath, and Byleth topples into his lap like wet paper. “B-Byleth! What did you—”

“How?” Solon rasps. Byleth pushes himself up with sore arms, his entire person weighted down by an unbelievable exhaustion. Behind them, Solon has called on another banshee, twisting and writhing around him like a shadowy snake. “Faith magic? But you… but…!”

Linhardt pushes Byleth behind him, rising to his feet—his arm is perfectly whole again, his complexion normal, his veins devoid of darkness—as they should be, as they should be. “Don’t you touch him,” he growls, his palms sparking with fire. “Did your plan fail, you ugly snake? No!” he shouts, flames racing across the clearing to scorch Solon’s hand before he can raise his arm. “Don’t you come a step nearer!”

“How cute,” Solon murmurs, shaking embers clinging to his hand, “you’re shaking.”

The wind gathering in Linhardt’s hands falters. “I-I—”

“Do you feel brave, now that he’s given himself up for you?” The banshee howls, racing for Linhardt, but his expression hardens and a burst of wind sweeps it away, drowning out the voices. It’s actual wind, Byleth vaguely notes, not the solidified blades that had almost sliced Claude’s head off. “I remember your fear so well. So much like right now… shivering like a little child.”

“D-Don’t—” Linhardt swallows, steps back. “Stay back.” But his voice is wavering, fluttering as a leaf in a storm, and even Byleth can feel the fear radiating off of him in waves.

“Why?” Solon takes his own step forward, that same odd spell from earlier gathering around him. “Scared to have my magic inside you again?”

_The dark magic in him, just awful…_

Byleth pulls Linhardt flat to the ground, just in time for the spell to fly right over their heads—Linhardt is shaking, his eyes wide and unseeing, or maybe seeing something else entirely. “Don’t… don’t… I…”

“Linhardt?” Byleth whispers. _Had he been hiding what he had seen, that night? Or are these repressed memories coming to the surface after seeing…?_

“It hurt,” Linhardt murmurs, “it h-hurt so much. I don’t know… how could I have forgotten? It felt like I was dying…”

Solon chuckles, a crackling sound like folding old paper. “Because it _was_ death, child. The Death spell—older than any of us, darker than we could ever hope to be.” He raises his hand, and the magic gathers around his entire arm up to his shoulder, sizzling and hissing like dark fire. “It’s quite the weapon, good for either slow torturous death or the fastest, most instantaneous kill you could imagine. Would you like to find out which one I plan to use on you?”

He flings his arms forward—the magic seems to roar, like a mighty beast’s gaping jaws—and Linhardt is still in front of Byleth, still not moving, still frightened beyond anything Byleth’s ever seen before but _not moving and it’s going to—_

The magic fizzles, sparks, stops. Byleth grabs Linhardt and pulls him away of its immediate trajectory, but the shadows seem to have frozen in place entirely.

For a moment, Solon looks shocked and confused—until he turns around and sneers, the lines of his face contorting disturbingly. “Well, well,” he jeers, “if it isn’t another little one ready to die.”

Hubert is silent, fingers twitching and expression clearly strained from keeping a hold on the Death spell. Beside him is Father, lance gleaming from the firelight—he says nothing either, only rushes Solon and swings his spear with clear killing intent, the same swing he had tried to teach Byleth before they had decided lances were not for him. Solon throws up a barrier in time, and Father retracts his lance in time as well before it can snap in half from the force. “Who the hell are you?” Father shouts, leaping away from a thin wave of miasma.

Solon’s lips curl into a grotesque snarl. “Must I introduce myself twice?”

Father snorts and throws his lance—the barrier deflects it back to the ground, shattered and splintered, but when Father moves again, the second spear he had strapped to his back goes through the weakened barrier easily, piercing Solon’s stomach. Solon screeches, not unlike the banshees he summons, and black blood pours out of the wound, spilling onto the ground. It sizzles like mire. “Why have you gone after this village?” Father growls. “What are you planning?”

Shadows snake out from Solon’s injury, wrapping around the spearhead and forcing it out of his body. “No matter,” he hisses. “This experiment is finished, and I’ve learned far more than I needed. Now I must bid you farewell.”

“What are you—wait!” Father lunges for him, but miasma latches onto his legs, pulling away as Solon closes his eyes, presses his hands together—and vanishes in a theatrical curtain of shadows.

For once, Byleth remembers his dreams.

He thinks some of Solon’s dark magic must have slipped into his system, because everything is tinted with dark violet, like the color of miasma—he dreams of fire, of Remire Village, of Linhardt staying resolutely in front of him even as Death comes nearer, nearer, nearer. He dreams the spell hits himself, and the pain is nothing like he’s ever felt before, like an animal born within his body feasting on his viscera—he dreams the spell hits Linhardt, and—

“Byleth! Kid, calm down!”

—and he wakes up, if only for a moment, to see something white and shining above him. Not lamplight, not the sun, but a beacon in the darkness of a room, something white and curling and something he’s only ever seen in slanted handwriting—

He falls back asleep, returns to the dreams.

Sometimes he faces Solon alone, no Linhardt and no Hubert and no Father. No Hector, either. No child. Just the two of them, trapped in a ring of fire, the Creator Sword in one hand and mire in the other. Sometimes Solon says, “If you wanted him to die for you, all you had to do was say so,” and other times he says, “Do you remember what Claude and I were talking about?” Sometimes he’s watching Linhardt and Solon against each other, gusts of wind with shrieking banshees.

Sometimes Byleth takes Solon’s place. He stands across Father, who glares and glares and then throws his lance straight for Byleth’s face—he stands across Linhardt, who looks at him terrified, fearful, all the trust and warmth gone from his gaze. “Don’t do this,” Linhardt says—“You promised,” Linhardt says, but Byleth casts the spell anyway, watches it—watches it—

Byleth remembers his dreams. He wishes, terribly, that he could forget them as soon as he wakes up, like foggy remnants fading into the morning light he can see seeping through the infirmary windows—but they remain, persistent, niggling into the folds of his brain and there to stay.

He looks down—the veins on his arms pulse feebly with gray. At the side of the bed he’s lying on is Linhardt, fast asleep, hands pressed to Byleth’s chest, still glowing faintly with faith magic.

“Linhardt…?”

Linhardt groans, stirring awake, his eyes blinking blearily open. “Oh,” he breathes, and something about his half-lidded gaze makes Byleth turn away, as if looking in on something private even if he’s seen Linhardt like this dozens of times before. “You’re awake.”

He straightens his folded body, wincing at the crack his back makes, and restarts the Heal spell. It spreads through Byleth’s body, warm and comforting, but his veins remain grayish and sickly. “Hubert said it would take a while until those go back to normal,” Linhardt tells him. “But you slept through most of the night once we got back to the monastery, if you aren’t aware, so the dark should leave just in time for lunch.”

“Were you up all night?” Byleth blurts out. He moves to sit up, because looking up at Linhardt from this position is more than a little tiring, but his entire body protests the motion.

Linhardt shrugs. “I took naps in between, and Flayn helped some. But you really should have watched yourself more—all the mire that slipped into your pores… disgusting.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down at himself again, but the gray only reminds him of the Death spell he had cast, had commanded to sink inside Linhardt and consume his body from the inside out, boiling his lungs, eating his heart—

 _No, no, no, that was a dream. That was a dream, and I’ve woken up._ “What happened to Solon?”

Linhardt shakes his head. “We can’t even find out more about him, much less actually find him.”

He says nothing else after that, and Byleth doesn’t miss the way fear flickers over his face nor how his hands tremble, the Heal spell faltering. Byleth almost asks _What’s wrong,_ before he remembers the abject terror Linhardt had been flung into when he’d seen Solon—remembers how he had stayed anyway, unmoving before Byleth, frozen not from fear but from a determination Byleth had never seen on him before until then.

“Thank you,” Byleth says. “For healing me. And protecting me.”

Linhardt doesn’t respond for a moment, looking perfectly focused on the Heal spell, but eventually he looks over at Byleth, looking thoroughly unnerved. “Has anyone told you about your soul-piercing stare?”

“My what?” Is that a compliment?

“Never mind.” Linhardt breaks the eye contact, focusing on the Heal spell again. He must be tired, keeping the magic up even when asleep, but he hasn’t been complaining as much as he usually does when forced to work. Byleth wonders if that’s supposed to mean something. “It was either stand before you, like you always do for me,” he murmurs, “or… kill him.”

Byleth stares at him. “With… your magic?”

“Why? Do you think wind is too weak against a bit of death?” Linhardt snorts. “You saw when the wind sent the voices from that banshee flying everywhere, didn’t you? It works the same with Dorothea’s fire and Hubert’s miasma. And the Death spell… they’re shadows. Shadows imbued with dark magic, but shadows all the same, and nothing that can’t be driven away by a strong bit of air.” He pauses. “It’s painless. Not lethal, either. All I have to do is push my opponent far enough away to win the fight. That’s why I learned it in the first place.”

“I never thought about it like that,” Byleth offers.

Linhardt shrugs. “Few people do. Wind magic is weak in comparison to thunder and fire. And dark, obviously. But you know me.”

“I do.”

Another pause, this time longer and more contemplative. “So you do,” Linhardt murmurs. “You must think me weak still. Unable to even hurt someone who tried to kill all of us.”

“It’s not weakness.” Byleth sits up, moving as slowly as possible. He can feel dizziness threatening to rise up in a wave and force him back down on the bed if he moves any faster.

Linhardt shakes his head. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it. I know weakness when I feel it. It’s just…” He sighs, looks to the side—his hair is disheveled, Byleth notices, strands coming undone from his ponytail and draping around the sides of his face like thin curtains. “You make it look so easy.”

“What?”

“Killing.”

The Heal spell stops at last, its light fading into the morning sun. Somehow its glow reminds Byleth of something else, something he had seen in that brief moment of respite when he had been awake, far from the pool of nightmares he had been so submerged in throughout the night. _What I had seen…_ could it have been a Crest?

“How do you do it?” Linhardt’s asking, deigning to look over at him again. “Don’t you feel anything?”

“No,” Byleth answers, blankly, honestly. What else is there to say?

Linhardt turns away at that, and Byleth feels something cold and warm at the same time clench at his chest, like how he thinks a fever must feel like—it’s still odd, identifying emotions and picking names for them like specimens in a lab, but this one must be called disappointment. “I see,” Linhardt mumbles. “Yes, I thought so. Of course you’d be used to it, being a mercenary and everything. Silly question.”

“It’s not because I’m used to it,” Byleth says, mouth acting of its own accord—when his mind catches up to his words, he nearly recoils from the bed, from Linhardt now staring at him in obvious confusion.

Because—Byleth _is_ used to it, in a way. Killing is mindless. It’s a part of the job. It’s a way to survive. It’s what Father tells him to do. It’s what he himself knows he should do. And yet—how is he supposed to explain it? How he can barely remember anything from before a few months ago, save some scattered memories—how he’s only ever followed and agreed with what others said without thinking for himself—how he only ever _feels something_ when he’s fishing with Father, talking to Dorothea, training with Petra, reading with Edelgard? Studying with Linhardt?

He thinks about saying all that, about how he doesn’t even know the names of emotions the way others know the colors of the rainbow, and imagines Linhardt staring at him, surprised, confused. Repulsed.

“Then why?” Linhardt prompts, tilting his head.

Byleth lets his gaze drop down to his lap, down to his folded hands. His veins remain insistently gray, and he imagines mire swimming in his system, lurking in the depths of his stomach, the curves of his bones. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

Linhardt frowns, inching closer. He lays one of his hands atop Byleth’s, but his touch is light, barely even there—in a moment of impatient, Byleth reaches to tug his hand down, for once inexplicably hungry for the slightest bit of human warmth, and doesn’t have to look at Linhardt to see the surprise on his face. “Byleth—”

“What happened to the child?” Byleth asks. He moves his other hand to hover above Linhardt’s, casting a Heal spell on the magical burns he knows are on his palm. “The one from the village.”

“Oh. He’s fine—I hurried him to the gates before I…” Linhardt swallows. “Came back for you.”

Byleth hums. “You’re good with children, aren’t you?”

“Am I? I just did what my mother used to.”

The Heal spell stutters. “Used to?”

“She died almost ten years ago.” Linhardt’s expression doesn’t change, although he does lay his other hand on Byleth’s lap, silently asking for treatment there as well—Byleth complies, forcing his magic to stay steady as Linhardt speaks. “I told you, before, that she used to plant Angelica herbs in our garden. Her hands always smelled of them, and she liked to care for my hair, so the scent remained with me. One of my few lasting memories of her.” He shrugs, careless, thoughtless. “She was a little overbearing. Sometimes she cried over nothing. Then she came down with sickness, and… I never knew her well, outside of that.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down at their joined hands, skin against skin, warmth mixing with warmth. “I never knew.”

“It’s alright. It isn’t as if I go around parading that fact.” Linhardt’s fingers reach up to interlock with Byleth’s. It’s a different kind of warmth altogether, and Byleth wants to lean into it, the comfort and reassurance he never knew he wanted until now. “What about you, Byleth? You never speak of your mother.”

“She…” _liked flowers, liked cooking, liked teasing my father, planned my birthday to be right after hers and I keep wondering how things would be if she were still here, if she were to meet you._ “She died when I was born. I never knew her.”

“Oh—” Linhardt’s voice softens. “I… didn’t know either. Suppose we both discovered something new today.”

“Suppose so.” Byleth lifts their hands, keeping his grip firm when Linhardt’s loosens in surprise, and observes the contrast of his scarred, grayish skin against Linhardt’s paleness in the early sunlight. “Linhardt…”

“…What is it?” Linhardt’s voice comes out strange, tight and uncertain.

“Do you think Solon meant it?” Byleth asks. He doesn’t know where the words had come from, only that they’re _there,_ unearthed from his subconscious and presented into the light, when he had never wanted them to be heard at all. “That I would… become like him, because of the dark.” He looks at his veins, gray with magic—at the dullness of his hands when he had tried so hard, so desperately, to make them glow with faith—at the Death spell he can so vividly remember casting—

Linhardt’s grip tightens, hard enough to drag Byleth out of his nightmares. “Why would you believe him?” he asks, almost snaps. “It’s true an overuse of dark magic can lead to this. But you’ve been talking to Hubert recently, haven’t you? You should know that you’re in no real danger by now, Byleth.”

“But—” _But I couldn’t cast Heal, I couldn’t help you when you needed me to, I’m the one who brought the mire with us and it’s my fault you got hurt at all, I keep wanting to cast dark magic more and more, more than anything else—_

“But what?” Linhardt cuts in, his eyes hardened steel. “Do you know _why_ you couldn’t cast Heal, at that time? It wasn’t anything to do with Solon nor dark magic, before you ask.”

Byleth stares at him. “What?” What _else_ could it have been, if not for at least one of those two? He hasn’t had trouble casting Heal since Linhardt had first taught him, all those months ago.

Linhardt’s gaze softens, and he looks down at their hands, gently lowering them back to the bed. “It’s called faith magic for a reason, Byleth. It isn’t limited to faith in the goddess. I know you don’t care for the Church, and I certainly am not the most religious student in this academy either. But faith means—faith in others, in the person you’re healing, in anything you can imagine. Faith in yourself, most of all.”

“I had faith in you then,” Byleth blurts out. “I always have.”

“I—I know,” Linhardt stammers, though his cheeks have gone red. “I think—what Solon was trying to do, riling you up like that and telling you you’d become like him… that was him trying to get rid of your faith in your magic. Your ability. It wasn’t related to dark magic at all. Remember Nosferatu?” He cocks his head, smiles a little, looking both terribly fond and terribly sad at the same time. “Plenty of people seem to think dark and faith magic are two different things, with how often they tend to cancel each other out. But you and I both know they’re only too easy to exchange.”

Byleth stares at their hands. He hasn’t been this near to Linhardt in a while—less than a month, really, not even a significantly long period of time, but he had felt Linhardt’s absence as acutely as he thinks he might feel Father’s. There had been a loss of warmth, of comfort, of the sort of familiarity he couldn’t get from any of his other classmates, and—

He sees his arms, his skin. Remembers the Death spell forming over his palms, as naturally as Solon had commanded it. Remembers a body on the ground.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I couldn’t…”

Linhardt raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“I couldn’t… protect everyone.”

“Oh.” Linhardt sighs. “You don’t have to apologize for that. It’s not as if anyone blames you.”

Byleth looks up at him. The sun has been creeping steadily into the sky, kissing Linhardt’s face with its light. “Still, he died for us. His name—” He swallows. “His name was Hector. He was always talking about honor for the Church, if I remember right. Father was fond of him.” _Was—_ he had never hated the past tense so much until right now, personally acquainted with something so impersonal.

For a moment there’s no response, and Linhardt seems to cloak himself in the silence for the better part of a minute; then, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly, he murmurs, “Do you ever wonder why so many of these soldiers never seem to value their own lives?”

Byleth says nothing.

“Why do we fight until we die? Why do we kill without hesitation? I hate it.” Linhardt lets go, drawing his hands back to curl into tight fists atop his lap, and Byleth misses the contact almost instantly. “You… You know me. I hate fighting. Taking lives. Blood on my hands, whether because I killed them or because they died for me. Am I supposed to be satisfied with the victory alone? Even at the cost of such life?”

“No, I…” Byleth looks away, towards the window—from here, he can just barely see the training grounds, where he imagines Petra must be, at this time of morning. Or perhaps Caspar, punching training dummies into submission. “I couldn’t be satisfied with that.”

Linhardt nods, though Byleth barely sees the movement. “Exactly. I don't see the point. Honor? That's a foolish reason to give your life. Glory? Even worse. And with all this violence going on… It seems like so much in our world is decided by who wins or loses a fight.”

“I—” Byleth takes a deep breath, lets it out. It hasn’t always been this hard to speak, has it? “I feel the… I feel the same. It’s different, with the mercenaries. No one cares about—about any of that. About glory or honor or dying for a bigger cause. When someone dies—it’s not something to celebrate, or praise them for.” He pauses, chances a glance over at Linhardt—he’s listening intently, which Byleth hadn’t expected. “We’re never happy about it either. Even if we finished the job and earned the money. That’s why, with the Church, I…”

He trails off, and decides there’s no need to continue—Linhardt is looking at him like he understands.

Byleth had still had enough energy for another three Divine Pulses—he knows this, he _knew_ this, and yet—what had he done? He had stood there when Hector had been killed, watched him die, _let_ him die, as if he really were the most acceptable death, the most affordable sacrifice. If only Byleth had done something else, had been faster, had thought quicker, had done anything at all—and logically he _knows_ he will never be able to save everyone, for people will die no matter how hard he tries, how many times he turns back time, but…

Someday there will come a time when he won’t be able to save someone again, and when that time comes—what then?

“Byleth,” Linhardt calls, just loud enough to clear the fog Byleth imagines must have been seeping into his head. “You’re thinking about how you could have saved him, aren’t you.”

It isn’t a question, so Byleth doesn’t answer. He inclines his head in the barest of nods, more acknowledgement than affirmation, and reaches out to tug Linhardt’s hand back towards his own. Linhardt doesn’t protest. “I did, too,” he tells him, softly. “Thought about how I could have done something, I mean. Perhaps the squire—Hector hadn’t been dead yet, when he hit the ground. Perhaps if I had moved fast enough, I could have cast a Heal spell, could have done something, but…”

Linhardt casts his gaze downwards, and Byleth can feel his hands trembling again. “Do you know what real fear feels like? It’s nothing I can hope to describe. It’s nothing I have any desire of describing at all. But I felt cold all over, seeing Solon again, remembering how it had felt when he had plunged me into his dark magic in the library.” A pause. “Flayn told me I almost died. It certainly felt like it.”

“I…” Byleth grips tighter, thinks about the smell of Angelica herbs on Linhardt’s pale hands, so smooth and unblemished and _alive_ with warmth. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Oh—” Linhardt flushes. “Well, I—I don’t want you to die either—”

“As long as I’m here,” Byleth interjects, gripping tighter, hoping against everything he knows that he’ll never have to let go again, that neither of their hands ever go cold with death—“I won’t let you die.”

In his head, he’s saying this to Edelgard, to Dorothea, to Petra. He’s saying this to Hubert, Ferdinand, Bernadetta—to Caspar and Ashe, to Father, to himself. In his dreams, he had looked down at Hector and Linhardt, had killed them all himself, had felt dark magic bursting their chests wide open to spray their remains into the firelit sky. The thought of losing this, of losing Linhardt, makes Byleth almost wish they’d never met at all, if only so he would never have to know pain so intimately in a way he’s never known it before, no matter how deep a sword had been plunged into him or how many arrows had buried themselves into his person.

Emotions—they were so fickle. So bothersome. Sometimes he wishes he could fade back into the life he doesn’t even remember living before the monastery—at least then, he hadn’t had to feel a thing.

“That’s… a bold statement to make.” Linhardt is looking at him, blue eyes glittering with the sunshine. Like waves of the ocean, Byleth thinks, with the sun cresting over their horizon. “But somehow I want to believe you. Because I—I look at you and think—” He swallows, looks away, laces their fingers even tighter together. “I just want to lie in the grass and soak up the sun filtering down through the trees together with you… That’s all I want.”

Byleth looks outside again. Judging from how bright it’s beginning to become, it must be nearing noontime by now. “That doesn’t sound so hard, does it?”

A small pause, and then an even smaller smile. “Do you want it too, then?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “More than anything.” Then, at Linhardt’s sputtering, “Though it’d be nice if we got to have Father, too. And Dorothea. And Petra. And Caspar and Ashe, and Edelgard and—”

“Alright, I get it,” Linhardt cuts in, sounding irritated. Byleth frowns. What had he done wrong this time? “Honestly,” Linhardt sighs, shaking his head and retracting his hand once again as he stands up, “I really don’t understand you sometimes. No—all the time, really. You never seem to stop being strange.”

“Sorry,” Byleth offers. “If you want, we could live together near a river, so we can fish.”

Linhardt’s already halfway out of the infirmary, but he whirls around at the words. “Wh— _live together?_ ”

“Near a river,” Byleth patiently repeats. “So we could all fish together. You, me, and Father. And whoever else wants to. I think Bernadetta would like it, but I suppose Caspar would get impatient.”

“…Right,” Linhardt sighs, “yes. Of course. I… Right. Byleth, you don’t really think we’ll all be able to live together like one big happy family or something, do you? We have our own families to concern ourselves over, Crests to pass on, territories to tend to. And, well, much more. I doubt Hubert and Ferdinand would take kindly to having to live together either.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down at his lap. He wants to ask Linhardt to come back, just for the warmth of his hand, but he figures that’d be selfish. “I suppose. It’s nice to think about, though. Like living with the mercenaries, but with all of you.”

He doesn’t look up, but he thinks Linhardt looks amused. “That’s… sweet.”

“What is?”

“No, never mind.” Linhardt turns away again, stretching his arms above him and yawning widely. “You’ll be fine by yourself—I’ve expended enough faith magic that it should purge the darkness from your system on its own in time for lunch. Now I need a nap, or else I’ll just about collapse during class again. See you, Byleth.”

Byleth looks up, watches Linhardt’s back grow further away. “Okay. See you.”

“Oh—almost forgot.” Linhardt stops by the doorway, only half-turning his head around. He isn’t even particularly looking at Byleth, just staring to the side with what looks almost like embarrassment on his features. “I’m—sorry for what I said, back then.”

“Back—?”

“And thank you,” he barrels on, still pointedly avoiding Byleth’s gaze, “for protecting me.”

Linhardt slips out the doorway without another word, pushing the door shut behind him. Byleth blinks, staring at the spot Linhardt had just been in—on impulse he lifts his hands to his face, and smells Angelica herbs clinging to his skin.

He still doesn’t know what Linhardt and Claude had been talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- moonberry: rip hector. as soon as he got a name i Knew  
> \- byleth and linhardt have achieved support level B!
> 
> next chapter: the paralogue with rhea i can't even remember the name of


	12. ethereal moon (1) — “…it really is beautiful.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is an obligatory dance lesson.
> 
> In hindsight, Byleth really should have expected this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [i’m tearing out the doubt that left me idle / and here i lay the fear that kept me still](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQzw9IWS4Hw) _
> 
> thanks for the kudos & comments as usual ❤ updating sometimes becomes a bit discouraging when i don't get much feedback so your comments really mean the world!!
> 
> we are also halfway through the fic with this chapter, thank god

“Hey, kid,” Father asks, perfectly seriously over lunch one day, “do you wanna be the representative for the White Heron Cup?”

Byleth chokes on his fish. Father, like the madman he is, laughs for the next minute instead of helping Byleth spit out the chunk of food from his poor throat. “I was _kidding._ Holy shit. You should’ve seen your face.”

“Don’t ever joke about that again,” Byleth whimpers.

“Yeah, yeah, not like I’d be able to. Anyway, don’t worry about it, the Arnault girl’s our representative. She’s been bothering me about it since forever, after all.”

That makes sense. Byleth hums as he gets back to his food with a little more trepidation than before—Dorothea’s been talking about the Cup since the Church staff had posted notices about it on the bulletin boards. Byleth himself doesn’t care for it (though he’s a bit excited at the prospect of a grand feast on the Garreg Mach Establishment Day), but he wonders what Linhardt thinks. Does he like dancing? He’s a noble, so he most likely knows the basics, but he seems too lazy to like such an exhausting activity…

“You’re spacing off again,” Father remarks, drawing Byleth out of his thoughts. He looks both tired and amused at the same time. “Let me guess what you looked _so_ preoccupied with… that von Hevring kid, right?”

Byleth lets his mouth fall in a little _o_ shape. “How did you know?”

“…Do you take me for an idiot?” Father shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m not letting you try and convince me that brat would be a good rep for our House. Normally I wouldn’t care, but Manuela and I made a deal and if she loses, I get to pass on all my paperwork to her for the next month…”

Oh, well. It isn’t really any of Byleth’s concern, anyway.

There is an obligatory dance lesson.

In hindsight, Byleth really should have expected this.

Professor Manuela is the one in charge of directing them, which is far more difficult than it sounds—they had gathered all three Houses for this one, which means Ferdinand and some purple-haired Golden Deer student haven’t stopped talking about tea for the past several minutes, two mages from the Blue Lions and Golden Deer Houses have started competing as to who could summon the biggest fireball, and—of course—Linhardt has looked murderous since Claude has entered the immediate vicinity.

(Byleth still doesn’t know the full story behind what they had argued about that day, but it’s been two months and his memory of it is blurred beyond recognition, so he supposes there’s no real point in asking anyway.)

Nothing’s really been _happening_ so far, to Byleth’s relief. It’s mostly just been Manuela discussing the basics of ballroom dancing and giving them a brief background on its history—seated in between Caspar and Edelgard, neither of whom care to listen much (though Edelgard made a token effort at first), Byleth’s tempted to take a quick nap. Or maybe sneak a book under the desk. He’s been trying to work on his faith magic more often now, after last month’s events, and he’s been working his way up to learning how to cast Recover, which, as Linhardt calls it, is really just a better Heal spell.

He wonders if he can learn how to cast Physic, too. It seems like a much more useful method of healing, but Linhardt says—

“And now,” Manuela exclaims, clapping her hands together and drawing Byleth’s attention back to the classroom, “this wouldn’t be a proper _dance class_ if there weren’t any actual _dancing_ involved, wouldn’t you say? Everyone, find a partner and head outside for some practice!”

Amidst the grumbling that arises from the students, Byleth sees his life flash before his eyes.

He gets partnered up with Dorothea at first, because she had seen him looking presumably lost and confused and had taken pity on him, bless her. “It isn’t so hard, especially if you’re leading,” she says, guiding him on where to place his hands. It’s a little awkward holding her waist, but Dorothea is kind enough to step back a little and allow more space between them than Manuela had instructed. “Now follow me—it’s just a box-step. Honestly, you won’t need to know anything else for the Establishment Day.”

“Oh, um. Alright.” Byleth follows her more than she follows him, but after a while he supposes it isn’t _that_ hard—it’s something he can tell will become mostly muscle memory with enough practice, though he isn’t about to prioritize that over his training. “How are you doing for the White Heron Cup?”

Dorothea brightens. “Perfectly! You don’t have to worry about a thing, Byleth, this competition will come and go and I’ll have won it for us before you know it. Oh, but the professor isn’t being a great help with this lesson, for once,” she adds, smiling teasingly, and Byleth’s a little surprised to find himself huffing out a laugh—he hasn’t done that in a while, with everything that’s been going on. “Well, don’t tell him I said that! He does a great job sitting on the sidelines and looking very stern while I practice, after all.”

They switch partners after a few rounds of the music, and Byleth watches Dorothea gleefully dash off to Petra—but now that leaves him alone with no one else. He tries searching the crowd to see someone who looks nice enough, but his eyes find a bob of green hair instead—and Byleth almost moves towards Linhardt, only to find him already paired up with Ferdinand. Caspar and Bernadetta, Edelgard and Hubert, Ashe and someone else from the Blue Lions…

“Well! Look who it is.”

Byleth turns around, and expertly hides his initial reaction to recoil. “Claude.”

Claude tilts his head and smiles, though all that does is send another shiver down Byleth’s spine. “What’s with the cold welcome? I apologized for the whole betraying-you thing, didn’t I?”

“You… did.” He had approached Byleth a few days after the battle and had said sorry, though he had proceeded to follow it up with “But you won anyway, so what does it matter. And all’s fair in love and war, isn’t it?” and had gotten a stony look from Linhardt as a result. “I’m not sure I’d call it an _apology,_ all the same.”

“Such sharp words. You wound me.” Claude extends his arms, and it takes Byleth a second to realize he’s in the following position. “Well? Hilda left me for Marianne, and the rest of my Deers are having fun, so I thought I’d go to someone who obviously wasn’t.”

“Isn’t,” Byleth corrects, but takes Claude’s hand anyway, a bit surprised when Claude laughs. He’s more graceful than Byleth had been expecting, although he supposes it’s only natural a noble understand the steps. “Why me?”

“Why you?” Claude smiles again. “Don’t worry, it’s not for any untoward reasons, if that’s what you’re thinking. And like I said, you just looked so lonely, my conscience couldn’t let me stay away from you.”

“Oh,” Byleth says, slowly, trying to let the words sink in, “okay, I guess.” He resigns himself to the fact that he is simply never going to understand Claude, and that it’s probably better that way. Byleth moves his feet to the box-step Dorothea had taught him, but on the last step, Claude moves to the side, shifting his arm around Byleth’s neck and dipping himself down—Byleth has to scramble to put his own arm around Claude’s back to keep him from falling. “What are you doing?” Byleth says, a little panicky.

Claude blinks up at him, looking content to remain in the position until Byleth pushes him back up. “Dancing, By. What else?”

“I… don’t know how.”

“What, to dip me? Yeah, definitely wasn’t obvious. Let’s try it again, then.” They repeat the movements, and this time Byleth’s ready for the last step, moving his arm around Claude’s upper back a little less chaotically. Claude grins. “Not so hard, right? There, now you can at least impress a certain someone during the celebration.”

Byleth frowns, pulling him back up. He can hear Professor Manuela up ahead calling for a change in partners, to his relief; if Claude had wanted to try that a third time, he’s not sure what he would’ve done. Possibly run away to the restroom and stay there for the next half hour. “Impress who?”

Claude just shakes his head. “This is going to take you forever. Oh, well. You’ll thank me later, just know it.” He waves a goodbye without elaborating, and then he’s disappeared in the crowd before Byleth can ask much more.

And for the third time, he’s left alone without a partner.

Byleth sighs. He’s never been much for companionship, certainly, but it still feels a little sad standing alone in a crowd of people who all clearly know each other. Even Sothis is a ways away, dancing on the bare grass and weaving through people with a giddy little grin. At least she’s having fun, Byleth bitterly thinks.

“Someone looks lonely,” a voice from behind dryly remarks. Byleth doesn’t have time to be surprised before Linhardt moves into view, giving the direction Claude had left in a particularly nasty glare Byleth rarely sees on him. “Feeling bereft now that he’s left you for someone else? I didn’t know you two were so friendly.”

Instead of saying just about anything else to deny Linhardt’s words, Byleth says, “Linhardt.”

“…What?”

Byleth smiles. “Hi.”

It’s still a little new, settling back into his familiar routine with Linhardt rather than remaining stuck in that tense discord that had kept them away from each other for weeks. Sometimes he still expects Linhardt to brush him off when they speak, or for Linhardt to deliberately make eye contact with him in a crowded area before disappearing amidst the rest of the people—and Byleth’s glad he doesn’t, because if that period of time had lasted any longer than it did, he has a feeling he would not be at the best state of mind.

Linhardt stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “Why… Why are you greeting me like that—oh, just hurry up and dance, will you. I’d like to get this over with already.”

“Okay.” Byleth lifts his arms up, the motion coming more naturally to him now, but pauses when he sees Linhardt in the same position. It takes him another second to remember that _oh, right, he’s taller than me, by two centimeters,_ and he hesitantly lowers his arms into the following position.

Linhardt doesn’t bother hiding an amused snort, taking Byleth’s hand and shifting a little to keep a comfortable distance between them. “First time following?”

“Third time dancing at all.”

“Makes sense. I can’t imagine you attending a ball while you were a mercenary.”

“Hmm…” Following is harder than leading had been, considering he has to do the reverse this time, and Byleth has to keep both his gaze and his attention focused on his feet, else he’ll step on Linhardt’s and probably send the both of them sprawling on the grass. “I guess.”

Linhardt sighs, and briefly lets go of Byleth’s hand to tip his chin up. The unexpected skin-on-skin contact makes Byleth jolt, and he almost jerks away before he meets Linhardt’s eyes and feels himself calm down, almost on reflex. “You look down at your feet too much,” he says, the corners of his lips quirking up in a hint of a smile. “Look at me more. You’ll learn better that way.”

He keeps his fingers on Byleth’s chin for another second longer, before drawing away and taking his hand again.

“Oh…” Byleth blinks, and he almost looks back down at his feet when his head blanks out and he forgets where to move next, but remembers himself and keeps his gaze on Linhardt. “Okay.”

“I had the same problem, when my tutor was teaching me the basics,” Linhardt sighs. Byleth tries to focus on his words and their movements at the same time, though it’s significantly harder now. “Moreso because I fell asleep at every given opportunity, and dancing unfortunately does not come as easily to me as magic does. I remember practicing this same step with Caspar.”

Byleth tilts his head to the side a little. A memory surfaces, unbidden and almost unfamiliar but welcome. “We did get invited to a ball, once, when we were mercenaries.”

“Mm? How was it?”

“I didn’t notice much. We were there for… a job, I think, to take out a serial killer…” He frowns, trying to remember more, but the recollection is hazy at best. “I remember the food was good. They didn’t have a lot of fish, though.”

Linhardt smiles. “Of course that’s what you remember.”

Then he winces, and Byleth hastily retracts his foot. “Sorry. Um, I—”

“No, don’t look down,” Linhardt admonishes, and Byleth snaps his chin back up, not eager for Linhardt to do it for him again. The tension in that one action had made him feel like a prey hunted by its predator, and it’s not a feeling he wants Linhardt to know about. “Look at me. You’re getting better already.”

“Oh. Really?” Byleth keeps his eyes fixed on a point somewhere beside Linhardt’s nose. It’s better than looking him right in the eyes.

“Well, not very much,” Linhardt allows, “but that wouldn’t have sounded as encouraging, would it? You’re at least not moving as robotically anymore.” Without warning, he takes an extra step out of the box, and Byleth follows on instinct—then nearly chokes when Linhardt moves Byleth’s hand to wrap around his neck and dip him down in the same way Byleth had with Claude, only, well, with the roles reversed. Byleth thankfully doesn’t stumble, even with the unexpected difference in balance, but he thinks that’s mostly out of shock.

One of Linhardt’s eyebrows quirks upwards, and he looks more than amused. “How does it feel being on the receiving end? Dizzying, isn’t it?”

“Hm…” Byleth carefully unscrambles his thoughts and manages, “A bit. But the view’s still the same.”

Linhardt steadies him up. Byleth’s attention immediately latches onto their previously-insignificant height difference and refuses to let go. “The view?”

“I’m still looking up at you, so nothing changed.”

“Why, do you want to look down on me?”

Byleth tilts his head to the side, trying to search for a different angle of Linhardt’s face. “Maybe.”

Before Linhardt can respond—if he had been planning to respond, anyway, considering his face has gone pink again—Manuela calls for them to stop and gathers the twenty-something students around her. Byleth tunes out most of what she says, more focused on stretching his arms after forcing them in an awkward position for most of the few minutes they had spent practicing, and briefly wonders if dance helps with flexibility. He’d have to try that, then…

“Byleth,” Professor Manuela calls, and Byleth snaps to guilty attention. “Hmm, well, after seeing Professor Jeralt in action, I wasn’t exactly expecting you to be a master of dance—” Most of the Black Eagles snicker at that, and Byleth can’t help a smile either—“but you learn fast, like you do with everything else. Good job. Although try not to crack someone’s skull when you dip them during the actual celebration, will you? Next, Caspar—I have no words…”

Byleth patiently waits until Manuela dismisses them before searching the dispersing crowd, but frowns when it seems devoid of the one person he’s looking for. Beside him, Linhardt yawns, stretches, and casts him a curious glance. “Looking for someone?”

“Have you seen Bernadetta?” Byleth looks around again, but even if Bernadetta had been here, she probably would have rushed off by now.

“Well—no, actually. I suppose this isn’t something she’d want to go out of her room for.” Linhardt pauses, and makes a little _ah_ sound when realization seems to strike. “Perhaps she’s celebrating in her room?”

That sounds like her, so Byleth heads over to the dorms, not too far away from the classrooms; it’s not hard remembering which room is Bernadetta’s now, with how many times Father has asked him to check up on her when he couldn’t do so himself, and today it’s even easier to pick out thanks to the gifts piled up on her front door, Ashe laying a neatly-wrapped book on top of the rest. “Oh, Byleth!” he greets. “Are you here for Bernadetta too?”

Byleth nods, glancing down at the book Ashe had gotten—an obscure romance novel, which he’s sure she’ll like. Among the rest of the gifts are spools of yarn, a half-dozen freshly-baked cupcakes, a stuffed bear, plant seeds… “She hasn’t come out at all?”

“I think you can tell.” Ashe shrugs. “Where else could she be, though? Caspar and I tried looking around for her, but we didn’t have much time until that dance class, and even then she didn’t attend, so we figured she’s in here.” He knocks lightly on the door, but there’s no response—which isn’t really out of character for Bernadetta.

“Oh…” Byleth looks down at his own gift box. It looks a little rumpled beside the others now. “Okay. Thanks.”

He sets off. There are few places Bernadetta voluntarily leaves her room for, and one of those is a place others probably wouldn’t have checked right away on a school day.

Even when he reaches the greenhouse, Byleth has to search further in the plants, because he knows Bernadetta has a tendency to hide away in all the greenery—eventually he finds her beside a giant pitcher plant, fussing over a patch of flowers next to it and humming to herself. It sounds off-key, but he doesn’t know anything about music, so he decides against pointing that out. “Bernadetta.”

Bernadetta leaps almost a foot in the air and shrieks so shrilly that Byleth thinks if her voice has risen an octave higher, she would have reached a pitch only audible to dogs. “B-B-Byleth!” she squeaks. “What are you… Why didn’t you… Y-You’re not here to kill me, are you?”

“No,” Byleth replies, puzzled. “That sounds like a terrible birthday gift to me.”

“Birthday…” She blinks, setting the watering can she had been holding down on the floor. “Gift?”

“It’s your birthday today, isn’t it? The 12th of the Ethereal Moon.”

Bernadetta squirms in place, gaze flicking down and away from his eyes. “Um, uh, y— _yeah,_ but—but how’d you know? And why do you care? You’re not about to—”

Byleth’s getting a bit of a headache having to keep up with such fast talk, so he decides against prolonging this any longer and hands over his gift. “Happy birthday.”

Bernadetta goes perfectly still.

“They’re mittens,” he explains, in case Bernadetta’s wary of something dangerous inside the box. “You taught me how to knit, didn’t you? I did these in my free time because it always gets chilly this time of the year, and I know your hands get cold easily.”

Bernadetta still does not move.

“You can take them,” Byleth carefully adds. “They don’t bite. And they’re purple.”

Bernadetta finally speaks, but it’s unfortunately not a thank-you just yet. “You… You’re not doing this to make fun of me, right? This isn’t a prank where you p-pretend to care about me but you’re actually giving me something like a—a dead rat, right!?”

“Like I said,” Byleth says, “that sounds like a terrible gift. Here, I’ll open it for you, if you like.” He unties the thin ribbon around the box and tears through the cheap wrapping paper he had bought from Anna in the nearby town; as promised, a pair of purple mittens comes into view. “There. See? No dead rats.”

“Oh…” She reaches out and takes the mittens in hand, ripped wrapping paper and all. “No dead rats,” she echoes, meekly.

Then she throws her arms around Byleth and bawls in his chest—Byleth nearly topples over from the force. “T… Thank you!” she sobs. “I’ve n-never… I’ve never gotten a r-real birthday gift before!”

“Uh—”

“And your knitting’s improved _so much!_ I didn’t know you learned how to hold a needle without breaking it in half so quickly! I’m so… so…” With a final sniffle, she takes a step back and furiously rubs at her cheeks. “Sorry! I-I… I just…”

Byleth surreptitiously wipes at the wet spot on the front of his uniform. “No, it’s okay. You have a lot of other gifts at your room, you know.”

Bernadetta freezes up. “What?”

“Have you been here all day? There’s a pile by the door—”

The greenhouse doors swing open, letting in the sounds of animated chattering—Bernadetta squeaks in distress, apparently forgetting the conversation and scrambling to hide behind the pitcher plant. It does, admittedly, put up an impressive defense. “W-Who are those?”

“I don’t know. Let me check.” Byleth doubts there’s any real danger, but if Bernadetta’s acting like there’s an enemy invasion, he may as well take it seriously too. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to go far—he only has to peer around a corner to see a very familiar group of people approaching.

Linhardt blinks owlishly. “Oh. Looks like you beat us to her, Byleth.” He’s holding what appears to be, of all things, a plate of steaming sweet buns piled atop one another. Beside him are Ashe and Caspar, the latter with a shiny new watering can in hand. “She _is_ here, isn’t she? Bernadetta, I mean.”

“Er…” Byleth makes a vague gesture behind him. “Yes. But please don’t be too loud.”

All three of them give Caspar pointed looks. “What?” Caspar huffs. “I can be quiet if I want to be! Like right now!”

“Your voice is echoing,” Ashe points out.

Bernadetta almost passes out at the sight of three extra people, but Linhardt presents the sweet buns before she can lose consciousness entirely, and its aroma seems to keep her awake. “W-Why’d you bring food to the greenhouse?”

“Why?” Linhardt tilts his head. “Well, I didn’t have time to find a nice enough birthday gift for you, but I remembered you like these.” He pauses, then looks at the rest of them gathered around the pitcher plant, which seems to be delighted at all the attention (though how Byleth knows that, he has no idea). “It’s something we all like, actually.”

“Yeah!” Caspar pipes up. To his credit, his voice is softer than his usual, though still not by much. “We don’t get to see you at the dining hall a lot, Bern! Or, well, we don’t get to see you around ever, more like. Won’t you share some food with us on your birthday, at least?”

“They’re really fresh,” Ashe adds. Bernadetta seems to warm a little—Ashe is one of the few people she speaks to, whenever she attends class. “Linhardt asked the head chef to make them just now!”

“Oh…” With a trembling arm, Bernadetta reaches out and plucks the topmost bun off the pile, taking a tiny bite out of it. Her eyes start watering almost instantly, but it’s almost certainly not from the heat. “Thank… Thank you…”

“Is she alright?” Linhardt whispers.

Byleth shrugs.

Caspar steps forward and holds out the watering can. Upon closer inspection, there’s a terrible drawing of some kind of purple blob on the side. “Here, Bern! Happy birthday! Your old watering can is looking pretty battered, so I got you a new one. Look, it’s personalized and everything. It’s got your face on it!” He points at the purple blob, which—if Byleth squints as hard as he can—looks a little like Bernadetta’s hair on a bad day.

Bernadetta seems to melt under the attention. “I—I—I don’t know what to say,” she cries, then stuffs the rest of the sweet bun in her mouth as if to prevent herself from speaking further.

Ashe gently pats her on the back, and Linhardt passes the plate off to Byleth, apparently tired from carrying it. Caspar grabs a bun. Byleth, after a moment’s thought, follows his example—all that dance practice has made him hungry. Bernadetta eventually chews through the entire sweet bun and reaches for another, still sniffling.

The sound of the greenhouse doors swinging open echoes faintly through the area again, and Bernadetta dives back towards the pitcher plant. “Don’t worry,” Ashe says, hurrying out to look around the wall of plants hiding them from view, “it’s just Dorothea and Petra, Bernie! They’re, um… oh! We’re here! This way!”

“No! W-What are you doing?” Bernadetta yelps.

“Well, inviting them, of course,” Caspar answers for Ashe. “I mean, this is kind of your birthday party by now, isn’t it?”

“Birthday… party?”

Dorothea lifts a hand in a greeting, smiling brightly when she reaches them. “Happy birthday, Bernie! It took us ages to find you, goodness, but at least we’re finally here—why, were you all having a birthday party without us?” She lifts up a plate of peach sorbet, which instantly draws the attention of almost everyone in the vicinity. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you have some of this after all, with how betrayed I feel…”

“No!” Caspar is already salivating. “Dorothea, come on, if we knew you were looking for Bern too…”

“Hmm, how about if you call me _big sis_ again?”

“Hey! Think about how the food feels! Wouldn’t it want us to eat it without a big fuss?”

“Um, Caspar, I don’t know about that…” Ashe interjects.

Petra, to her credit, walks past the mess and hands over a stuffed rabbit doll with a grey ribbon around its neck. “Happy birthday, Bernadetta! I apologize for not greeting you earlier. We could not seem to find you. The monastery is such a big place…”

“N-No! Don’t apologize, Petra, and—” Bernadetta swallows and takes the rabbit, hugging it to her chest. “T… Thank you so much…”

Edelgard, Ferdinand, and even Hubert come around a few minutes later, right when there are three sweet buns and two slices of peach sorbet left; Ferdinand proudly declares his gift was too big to carry around and he had left it at Bernadetta’s doorstep where she could be pleasantly surprised by it. (Byleth decides to take that he’s brought her a foal, or possibly a pony.)

Edelgard gives her a new bow made of polished silver (Bernadetta staggers under its weight) and Hubert hands over a plain-looking lantern. “So you can stop bumping around in the night with only a candle,” he tells her. Bernadetta goes pink with embarrassment and shoves a sweet bun in his mouth, a technique that seems to be her answer to everything, and they all stare incredulously as Hubert slowly, wordlessly chews.

“So this is where you’ve all been,” someone grunts—there’s a chorus of surprised greetings as Father rounds the corner, scratching his head and carrying a gift box in his other hand. “You’re all making a terrible racket, but the greenhouse keeper’s too nice to tell you all to hush. Hey, here.” He hands the gift over to Bernadetta, who reacts less slowly this time, reaching out to take the box without needing prompting from any of them. “Happy birthday, kid. Next time, find a less weird venue for your party.”

“M-Maybe we should go, then?” Bernadetta meekly mumbles, looking around furtively as if expecting the greenhouse keeper to jump out of a bush. “I-I don’t want us to be a bother!”

Father shakes his head, clapping Bernadetta on the back. She nearly topples over from the force and has to grab onto Caspar’s arm to steady herself. “No one said anything about leaving, right?” Then his eyes land on the empty dining plates, and his entire demeanor shifts. “Did you finish all the food before I got here?”

No one answers. Edelgard subtly nudges Byleth and gives him a look that clearly says, _You say something, he’s your father, we’re just his students._

“I ate the last peach slice,” Byleth answers.

Father smacks his shoulder. Edelgard hides her laugh behind a gloved palm; Bernadetta giggles into Father’s gift box.

Beside her, the pitcher plant bobs a little in the air, looking as festive as the rest of them.

“On your guards. This fog’s as artificial as we remember it from last time.”

Father’s voice is calm, steady, as if this were a walk around the monastery rather than a mission to execute members of the Western Church. Shrouded in the same heavy fog from last time gives Byleth a familiar phantom itch all over his body, and he’s glad he wore his usual armor out rather than his uniform—with so many shadows and so much forest to hide in, he can’t begin to fathom how his classmates feel at all safe in their clothes.

Least of all Ashe.

Father had only planned to bring Byleth, Edelgard, and Hubert along, considering the rest of the Knights of Seiros were coming and there’s little reason to endanger the rest of the class, but Ashe had insisted on coming along, and Caspar goes where Ashe goes, so. And really, Byleth thinks Father wouldn’t have been able to put up a fight if they had had the luxury of time for that.

“They’re using the fog as cover to ambush us again,” Catherine spits. Her grip on Thunderbrand is tight enough that Byleth figures it’s hurting the Relic. “What a cheap ploy.”

“It won’t do any good to get annoyed, Catherine…”

And—well, it’s not Byleth’s fault if he automatically tunes that voice out, even if he figures the words it’s speaking are probably important. It’s just that every time he’s had to accompany Father to the Archbishop’s audience chamber, her voice just washes over him like a cold breath of air during winter. Chilly and freezing down to the bone—and the way she _looks_ at him, like he’s something to be coddled—Byleth hates it.

He shouldn’t, logically enough. She was kind enough to offer Father a job and Byleth admission into the Officers Academy, and she let Byleth keep the Creator Sword, which he’s starting to think is probably his best friend now, and really, she’s been nothing but perfectly _nice_ —but he doesn’t trust her, and he doesn’t think he ever will.

Something moves in the fog—Father barks out an order, and the knights move in one fluid motion to gather around not just the Archbishop, standing in the center of their formation, but also around the students, save for Byleth. Ashe yelps, Caspar snaps, Edelgard huffs, and Hubert glares, but then the enemies start moving in—pegasus knights and cavalrymen, and the telltale hiss of dark magic behind the cover of fog—

Byleth moves swiftly, simply. Frankly, he doesn’t care for protecting the Archbishop—Catherine can take care of that. Her fighting style revolves around complimenting the Archbishop’s long-range magic, after all. But Byleth lets the Creator Sword cut down the pegasus knights jabbing their lances at Hubert, at the cavalrymen moving too fast for Ashe to aim properly—he sees a blanket of miasma blending in with the fog around them, grabs control away from its caster and sends it flying back into the woods before it can get Caspar—

“Byleth!” Edelgard calls, just barely audible over the battle around them; Byleth doesn’t take his eyes off their immediate surroundings, tense and ready for the first sign of movement, but cocks his head to indicate acknowledgement. “You don’t have to protect us all the time. Let us fight.”

That gives him pause. “But—Edelgard—”

“We’re not _just_ students, Byleth.” He turns around at her nearing voice, only to see her break free from the formation to hurry to his side, frowning up at him. “We’re trained by the professor too. Come on—I thought you knew that.”

Byleth feels himself deflate, which is beyond embarrassing. “I… Yes. You’re right. I just…”

 _Can’t help but worry,_ he means to say, but he stops himself at the last second. _Worry_ —an emotion that feels a little like how he imagines a worm living in his head would feel like, constantly niggling at his thoughts until he acts on it. Has he ever worried about others before the monastery? He can’t remember. Of course not—there’s nothing to recall.

Edelgard seems to catch onto the unspoken words anyway, as her frown softens into a faint smile. “The sentiment is appreciated, but unnecessary.” Then, without bothering to look away, she throws her hand axe at something behind Byleth at lightning speed. He whirls around just in time to see a cavalryman topple off his fleeing horse, the axe buried deep in his chest. “You see?”

“Fine,” Byleth concedes. With a handy bit of weak wind magic he’s been practicing, he manages to tug the axe out of the soldier and hand it back to Edelgard without having to move either, feeling a smile come on at her awed expression. “But keep safe of the dark mages still.”

It’s Ashe Byleth worries about most, rather than the Archbishop or whatever—he slips out of the knights’ formation as well and rushes straight into the fog, Caspar barreling after him, and though Edelgard’s busy keeping away the enemies along with Father and Catherine, Byleth doesn’t miss the panicked glance Hubert sends his way. Byleth lets the Creator Sword lash out at one last pegasus knight, sending the rider careening to the ground, before he joins with Hubert into the woods. “Did you see where they went?”

Hubert shakes his head, but his palms sizzle with dark magic, and a thin cloud of miasma whispers into the air. “This one will.” With a flick of his wrist, it flies into the fog in the general direction Ashe and Caspar had taken, then returns after a moment of silence. Hubert nods. “This way.”

“What was that?” Byleth asks—Hubert’s run is more of a jog for him, but he isn’t about to push the other man.

“A tracking spell. Most magic can do that much, with enough energy.” A sidelong glance. “Were you not aware?”

Byleth frowns. “Teach me.”

“It is easy enough that you do not need my guidance to learn it.”

“Teach me anyway.”

Hubert shakes his head. “Later. Come.”

The woods are thick, thicker still with fog hanging everywhere around them, but the faint sound of voices eventually guides them to a small clearing—Ashe and Caspar on one side, the bishop who had openly taunted them earlier on the other. “You,” Ashe is saying, his grip on his bow shaky, “Lonato’s blood is on your hands…”

“Were you Lord Lonato’s page or something?” the bishop scoffs. His palms are brimming with dark magic, and Byleth can hear unfamiliar voices just within hearing range. _Banshee._ “Indeed, he was a devout believer. All we did was provide Lord Lonato salvation from his misery!”

“ _Salvation?_ ” Ashe screams, voice loud enough to drown out the rest of the sounds. Byleth’s never heard him shout like this, nor has he ever seen him this angry, his normally bright green eyes dark and shadowed, his lips curled into a snarl. “You used him and threw him away!”

He holds up his bow, nocks an arrow and shoots it faster than he’s ever done at the training grounds, but the bishop throws up a barrier, and before Ashe can attack again, the banshee comes screeching into existence—Caspar shoves Ashe out of the way, sending them both sprawling onto the grass, but the banshee swerves through the air, still coming straight for them—

Hubert stands up and grabs for the magic. Byleth can almost feel it in the air, the change in power and control as it shifts from one dark mage to another, the banshee’s shrieking suddenly muted, subdued, as it hovers in place above them. “H-How—” the bishop sputters, turning around to see Hubert’s narrowed eyes and Byleth’s gleaming blade behind the trees. “More of you brats? Suppose the Church is running low on their precious knights, if they’re sending students to take care of us, are they?”

He has just enough control to dispel the banshee before it can be used against him, but with four-against-one, he would never have been fast enough—Ashe launches himself towards him and digs a knife (Byleth’s knife!) deep into his throat, sending blood spurting out like a fountain, splashing everywhere and staining the front of his uniform. The bishop gurgles unintelligibly, the magic in his hands dying out as he collapses onto the ground in a bloody mess.

Ashe wrenches the knife out of his neck and flicks blood off of it. Red splatters across the grass. “You…” He’s shaking. “You can’t bring him back, can you?”

Byleth looks away from Ashe, directing his gaze to the fallen bishop instead. His blood pools beneath him, sinking into the soil and dyeing the grass crimson. It’s disgusting.

If anything, he’s glad Linhardt isn’t here to see it.

There are still soldiers in the woods, but they’re hardly any threat, untrained for combat and falling easily to Byleth’s Creator Sword and Hubert’s dark magic. Caspar takes down anyone who tries to sneak up from behind, but Ashe is largely unresponsive, sticking to Caspar’s side and clutching his knife close to his chest. When they make it back to the clearing where Father, Catherine, and the knights (and the Archbishop) are, the battle’s already slowing to a stop. Squires are coming out of the gloom, reporting numbers and body counts Byleth doesn’t want to listen to.

The Archbishop lowers her head, clasps her hands together. “Goddess, have mercy. Forgive them their sins, and save their souls…”

She and Catherine converse more about what to do next—there’s need to go to the headquarters of the Western Church, something Byleth wants absolutely nothing to do with. But Ashe snaps to attention at that, and he shakes Caspar off to hurry to the Archbishop’s side. “Please, let me help too. It may not be much, but I’ll do whatever I can!”

The Archbishop smiles down at him, and Byleth wrenches his gaze away from the sight. Beside him, Caspar huffs. “He could have _asked_ if I wanted to go.”

“It’s unlike you to not be straightforward with what you want,” Hubert remarks.

“Well—Well, he never seems to get it, even if I _am_ straightforward, so what’s the point! Ugh. This is a mess. Whatever. Not like he needs my help.”

Hubert shakes his head. “You two will never have a clear conversation with that mindset.”

“Then what do _you_ suggest, Hubert?”

“To help with our task now, for starters. We must search the bodies for any more hints of future attacks on the Archbishop. You can worry about your relationship later.”

“Relationship… yeah, right, I _wish…_ ”

Knights bring the corpses of the enemy soldiers into the clearing for searching. Byleth takes to it right away—he’s used to looting bodies of treasures and weapons from his mercenary life, and this is no different. There aren’t any suspicious documents or whatever, like what Lord Lonato had back then, but Byleth’s barely paying attention to those anyway; mostly he cares about the hidden knives, the fixable lances, even the few tomes the dark mages had brought along.

He flips through them quickly, almost excitably, under Hubert’s watchful eye, and spells blur past his eyes: _Swarm, Luna, Hades._ While the spells are the same in the books he had found in the library, the author is different, which means there are bound to be different notes, too. Something races through his veins at the thought of learning more, the same tingle he gets every time he casts dark magic—the need to do it again, the urge to _keep_ doing it again.

“Don’t get too excited,” Hubert says, leaning back against a tree trunk and scanning through one of the tomes, looking almost bored. “I doubt you can cast these, at your current skill.”

Byleth frowns. At least, he hopes he frowns—it feels a little like he’s pouting, but he really doesn’t want to believe that. “How can you say that?”

“A little miasma and mire is nothing compared to even the easiest one among these.” He bends down to flip to the page containing Swarm. “The control you need for this one will overwhelm you in seconds if you’re not careful. Even Banshee would be easier.”

“Hmm.” Byleth reads through the spell description. “Doesn’t sound so hard.”

“You… Are your ears just for show?”

They split the tomes evenly between them, though they make an agreement to exchange every now and then if necessary anyway. When Hubert leaves to smuggle the books away (they’re _technically_ supposed to give everything they find to the knights, but really, what use will the Church have for illegal dark magic tomes?), Byleth resumes digging through the corpses, though he doesn’t have much hope now that most of the valuables have been taken. He’s aware he should feel some kind of remorse about this, considering he’s stealing from the dead, but it’s hard to feel remorse when they’re, well, dead. It’s not as if they’re going to be needing their weapons anymore.

His hand brushes over something oddly soft, almost velvety, and Byleth feels his brow scrunch in concentration as he fishes a small box out of the soldiers’ inside pocket. When he pops it open, a modest ring gleams from within, tucked snugly in the plush.

A ring… Byleth’s heard of some accessories having magical properties. Perhaps this is one of them, though he wonders why the soldier would keep it in a box rather than wear it and let its effects take hold. He lifts it up to the sunlight gently dispersing the artificial fog, and sees a tiny blue jewel sparkling at its center, a miniature view of the ocean.

“My, what have you found there?”

Byleth’s not sure which of them moves first, his arm or the Creator Sword—all he knows is that the voice is not Father, not Edelgard, not anyone he trusts, and then the blade is an inch away from severing the Archbishop’s neck.

Even upon meeting her eyes, perfectly calm and composed, he does not immediately retract his sword. A second, two—then he lets the Creator Sword fall back down to his side. “Sorry,” he says, the apology bitter on his tongue. “I didn’t see you. Weren’t you going to the Western Church headquarters?”

The Archbishop only smiles. Perhaps she’s sure the Creator Sword wouldn’t harm her. Perhaps it’s Byleth she’s sure of. Byleth certainly can’t tell. “Your reflexes are just as impressive as your father’s, I see.” She steps closer, and Byleth resists the urge to step back. “Is that a ring?”

 _Why did she ignore the question…_ Byleth fights the instinct to keep the ring far away from the Archbishop’s prying eyes, extending his arms instead. “It was on the soldier.”

“Interesting. It must have been an engagement ring he meant to give to his beloved, before…” She trails off, bending down to examine the ring more closely; her green hair is near enough to tickle Byleth’s nose, and he fights away the oncoming sneeze. “It’s a ring imbued with the goddess’ magic,” she eventually notes. “There’s an engraving on the inside… in the old language…”

“Hey,” Byleth says, “a question.”

The Archbishop pauses. Looks up. “What is it?”

“Why did you have to execute them?”

She looks almost confused for a moment. “Why? I thought Catherine briefed you on the mission details. They—”

“Planned to execute you. I know.” From the corner of his eye, Byleth can see Hubert halt in his tracks, surprised gaze fixed on the two of them, before he quietly calls Edelgard over. _Good,_ Byleth thinks, irrationally satisfied; _let them listen._ “But those people from back then, when we had to track down Lord Lonato… the people fighting for him were villagers. Not trained soldiers. And these people—aren’t they believers of the same goddess you worship?” He pauses, wondering if the Archbishop will say anything, then slowly adds, “I had not been exposed to much religion, growing up. So it all feels a little strange.”

“I see…” The Archbishop shakes her head, her smile still unshaken. It’s more unnerving than Byleth wants to admit. “I’m glad you aren’t the mindless killer the rumors said you were, dear Byleth. It’s true those people were villagers, and that these soldiers were believers of the goddess as well. But raising one’s sword against the Church is equivalent to raising one’s sword against the same goddess they claim to believe in. It is therefore our duty as true followers of the faith to act in the goddess’ will and punish those who dare oppose Fódlan’s ruler.”

In the depths of his head, where Sothis lounges languidly atop her throne, she fakes a yawn and says, “If _I_ were this land’s goddess, I’d certainly be more than a little worried about someone killing in my name. Without even asking me first!”

Byleth bites back a short laugh, which thankfully isn’t hard, considering all he has to do is look the Archbishop in the eye for any mirth to fade. “I see,” he says, as evenly and neutrally as possible. “That makes sense. Thank you, Archbishop.”

 _Lady Rhea,_ his common sense reminds him, but he shakes the thought away—even saying the Archbishop’s name makes him feel sick.

The dismissal in his tone cannot be any more obvious, and the Archbishop smiles again. “No, thank you, Byleth, for your help in this mission. I’ll send a gift of my thanks to your father later, after we return from the Western Church.” She dips her head in goodbye, a gesture Byleth can’t even pretend to return, and turns to leave.

Edelgard is at his side almost immediately. “Byleth!” she whispers, though her voice nearly carries halfway across the clearing anyway. “What in Fódlan was that about? We could feel the tension from a mile away.”

Byleth shrugs awkwardly as Hubert approaches as well. They’re now a fairly suspicious-looking trio, gathered around and obviously engaged in discussion, but he finds it hard to care very much. “I asked her why she had to execute these men.”

Edelgard blinks, and an odd look crosses her face—something like excitement, maybe, but also caution. Byleth hadn’t been aware those two could even go together. “And? What did she say?”

“That she was acting on behalf of the goddess…” Byleth tilts his head. Had she said anything else? It felt like she had spoken for a while, but he can’t recall anything more substantial. Had she been vague on purpose? “Or something like that.”

“Or something like that,” Hubert repeats, sounding faintly distraught.

Byleth nods. “It’s not that I forgot. It’s just that… well, she said a lot of things, but she didn’t exactly explain much…”

Edelgard sighs, crossing her arms and frowning at the ground. “Byleth… you don’t trust the Church either, do you?”

The question’s so blunt, asked within a circle of knights working directly for the Church, and without so much as a trace of hesitation, that it takes Byleth a little aback. “What?”

“Oh—never mind.” She turns around and tugs on Hubert’s wrist. “Come on. Let’s get back to work.”

Hubert offers Byleth one last sigh before following after her. The air is thick with unsaid words—Byleth almost wants to call after them, because _what had she said? Does she mean what she seems to mean? Does she also…?_ But they’re too far away now, blending in with the rest of the knights, and Byleth doesn’t think he can move if he even wanted to—his feet feel stuck to the grass.

He looks down at his hands, and sees the ring still sitting in its box, twinkling up at him. The Archbishop, at least, hadn’t taken it from him. Byleth considers it for a moment, then closes the box and pockets it in the inside of his coat.

On the trek back home, Byleth rides with Father on his horse, a luxury Father usually doesn’t grant him but offers whenever he notices Byleth looking off, which he’s almost always right about. “You’re a little quiet today—more than usual, at least,” Father says. They’re bringing up the rear, and hardly anyone is close enough to listen in. “Something wrong, kid?”

“Mm…” Byleth rests his forehead against Father’s back. He hasn’t been able to do this in a while, and it’s nice to just relax and let himself lean on someone else for once. Father doesn’t push for an answer right away, and they ride in silence for a while until Byleth asks, slowly, carefully: “Do you trust the Archbishop?”

Minutes pass. The only sounds are faint birdsong, the rustling of leaves, knights chattering ahead of them.

When Father sighs, Byleth feels every bit as heavy as it sounds. “What brought something like _that_ on?”

“Don’t know. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

“‘Course you have… ‘course you have.” Father sighs again, as if there’s too much air in his lungs, too heavy a burden on his tired shoulders. “You don’t, do you?”

“No,” Byleth says. “I never have.” Father had told him to avoid the Archbishop since they had first stepped foot in the monastery, and those instructions haven’t changed since. The distrust has only grown since then.

“Yeah… makes sense, I’m the one who told you to steer clear of her, didn’t I…” He’s quiet for another few seconds, then finally shakes his head. “Gonna be real with you, kid. I trusted her once, before, with my life, but ever since we left the monastery… I don’t. I _can’t,_ really.”

Byleth looks up at that, his brow furrowing. “Since we…? I thought I was born after you left.”

“Ah.” A pause. “Huh. Right. Guess I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I.”

“Done what?”

Father turns around to face him, and the smile on his face can’t be more tired and more fond at the same time. “Listen, I’ve got a lot of stuff to talk to you about. Figure it’s time you know some of these things. But—for now, can I trust you to wait for me again? ‘Til I’ve got both the time and the words to tell you everything?”

It takes Byleth a moment, but he eventually lifts his arms to wrap lightly around Father’s waist in a loose hug. The warmth is enough to ground him, and he wonders why he’s never done this before. “Should I be worried?”

Father reaches back to ruffle his hair, the gesture comfortingly familiar. “It might be a lot to take in at first. I know _I’d_ be worried. But then—well, you’ve always taken everything in stride, haven’t you, kid?”

It takes him a few minutes of searching, but all the walking around the monastery has given Byleth both the speed and the endurance he needs to find people without taking too much time or ending up too winded.

As it is, Linhardt’s fallen asleep at the library again, which isn’t as surprising as it is, given that it’s late in the evening when they get back from the mission. The candles are burning low—all three of them—and Linhardt’s slumped body is half-hidden in the shadows cast by the firelight, enough that Byleth almost misses him. “Linhardt?”

A muffled grunt, and not much else. Byleth walks closer and gently nudges Linhardt’s shoulder, though he’s tempted to tug on his ponytail. He’s seen Caspar do it sometimes, and Linhardt always hisses like a cat with its tail pulled. “Linhardt, wake up. It’s late.”

“So shouldn’t I stay asleep?” comes the grumbled reply. Linhardt pushes himself off the desk anyway, blinking blearily and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Byleth, good morning.”

“It’s almost midnight.”

“Whatever. You took your time getting back.”

“It was a long mission,” Byleth says, though most of it had been spent twiddling their thumbs and waiting around for the Archbishop to come back from the Western Church. He, Hubert, and a few of the other knights had made chess pieces out of mud and leaves and played a few rounds (Hubert won all five, even with Edelgard coaching Byleth on). “Have you been here all day?”

“Mm, just for a few hours… well, maybe more. There were certainly more candles up when I was awake.” Linhardt leans back to stretch his arms, yawning widely. “Have you been looking for me since you returned? I suppose I should be touched.”

“Oh. Yes, that’s right. I’ve something for you.”

Linhardt perks up at that. “What, a souvenir from the mission? What did you get me, the head of some soldier?” Then he shivers at his own words. “Oh… forget I said that. I’m getting queasy. But what else could you have possibly—”

He goes perfectly silent when Byleth fishes the box out of his pocket.

Byleth looks at him. “Are you alright?”

“What…” Linhardt coughs. “What is…”

“Here. It’s a ring.” Byleth flips the box open, revealing the aforementioned object. Even in the dim candlelight, it glimmers blue as the sea. “I don’t know if it will fit you, but I tried it on my hand and it’s a bit tight, and I know your fingers are thinner, so… Linhardt,” he says, a little more worried now, “what’s wrong?”

The mortified expression Linhardt is wearing is more concerning than Byleth had expected from a simple ring. “I-Isn’t this a bit—early, Byleth? And—I-I never—You said—”

“Early…?” Byleth frowns. “But it’s the Ethereal Moon already, isn’t it? I heard it’s customary to give gifts during this time. The mercenaries always do, anyway.”

“…Ah.”

“It’s supposedly imbued with the powers of the goddess. Something to do with healing magic. And—” Byleth can’t resist a smile. “Look. This crystal—it’s blue. Earlier I held it up to the light, and I thought of how the ocean looks when the sunlight hits its waves, and sometimes that’s exactly how your eyes look, too. That’s why I thought you might like it.”

He pauses, when Linhardt is still silent, his shocked expression having morphed into a blank one. “There’s also… some engraving on the inside,” Byleth hesitantly adds. “It’s in the old language. I know you like finding more books written in it to practice your comprehension—anyway, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to accept it,” he says, suddenly aware of how much he’s spoken. What had possessed him to tell Linhardt about the whole ocean-eyes thing? He can feel his cheeks warming with the uncomfortable heat he’s come to associate with embarrassment. “I can find someone else to give it to—”

“No!” Linhardt blurts out, leaning forward and almost falling off his chair entirely. “I mean—er, I was simply… surprised. It looks like a—an expensive ring, after all. Where did you get it?”

“From a corpse.”

Silence. Linhardt leans back in his chair with a little sigh. “I suppose I should have known. Still, I’m… flattered you thought of me. Thank you.” He reaches forward to take the ring and slips it over the ring finger of his left hand with a curious expression—it fits perfectly, like Byleth had expected. “Ah. It really is…” Linhardt lifts it up to the light. “It really is beautiful.”

Byleth feels a smile come on. “I’m glad you like it.”

“But I don’t have anything to give you back.” Linhardt frowns, closing the book he had been sleeping on and gathering the rest of the volumes scattered on the table in his arms. Byleth automatically does the same with the remaining books—they’re all on Crests, as usual. “You’ll have to wait until I procure something for you too.”

“Oh. You don’t need to. I don’t really want anything anyway.” They head out of the library together, extinguishing the last few candles as they leave. Moonlight shines gently upon the corridors.

Linhardt raises a brow. “Really? Nothing?”

“Well…” Byleth thinks about what he does want, but all that comes to mind are past events—tea with Linhardt, dark magic tomes, Bernadetta’s birthday party. Hugging Father, just a while ago. Seeing Caspar make Ashe laugh by accidentally running into a tree, after Ashe had looked so downcast about a thick sheaf of documents he had been given.

Mother, too—but he wonders if she’s happier, wherever she is now, wherever people go to die.

Byleth smiles. “For now, I think I have everything I want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i wrote this around the time our PE class was on ballroom dancing so OBVIOUSLY i couldn't just let my newfound knowledge go unused. then again i skipped two classes in a row and i had to get reference from youtube videos all the same but that's beside the point  
> \- “Why, do you want to look down on me?” / “Maybe.” — linhardt absolutely knew what he was saying. byleth absolutely did not.
> 
> next chapter: the canon divergence tag is finally put to more use


	13. ethereal moon (2) — “perhaps someday i’ll tell you.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ball is—exhausting, for lack of a better word. Not necessarily in a bad way, because Byleth actually likes some of the people he dances with, but it’s far too much exercise, even for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [come on, fallen star, i refuse to let you die](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5HBW-NcSY4) _
> 
> thanks as usual for the feedback!! i have nothing smart to say about this chapter so please just enjoy

The ball is—exhausting, for lack of a better word. Not necessarily in a bad way, because Byleth actually likes some of the people he dances with, but it’s far too much exercise, even for him.

The celebration has mostly been composed of gift-giving. Byleth decided on giving everyone in the Black Eagles flowers, because it’s been too crowded in town lately to buy anything there, even if Anna likes him enough to offer the occasional discount (in exchange for his help in driving bandits away from her favorite trade routes, admittedly), so he grew different varieties in the greenhouse himself, relying mostly on intuition to guess their favorite flowers. (He gives Dorothea some gemstone beads from the market instead, though, because he has a feeling she must be tired of the insincere bouquets she used to receive in the opera.)

But he’s not expecting the gifts he _receives_ —a pendant from Edelgard, more tea from Ferdinand, and almost a dozen books on topics ranging from magic to (of all things) a history of the Church, since apparently there’s no way he can spend all that time in the library and not like books.

Still, it’s nice to sit down and do nothing, at least for a little while. Faculty and staff are meant to be chaperoning, so Byleth can’t stay with Father, but he’s not _lonely,_ either. For the first few minutes, he sits with Caspar and Petra, and they all talk about weapon training together with varying levels of enthusiasm; then when they leave to dance, Edelgard and Hubert take their places, and they spend several minutes exchanging information (more accurately, thinly-veiled gossip) about the other Houses. Ferdinand enlists Byleth’s and Ashe’s help in coaxing Bernadetta out of the restroom, if only so they can walk her back to her dorm. And Dorothea, recent winner of the White Heron Cup, has led him out to dance twice already.

Despite everything, Linhardt’s absence is near-overwhelming. Byleth knows Linhardt hadn’t been planning to attend in the first place, so it shouldn’t bother Byleth so much, but—still.

“What’s got you looking so down?” Dorothea asks. This is the third time they’ve danced together, and Byleth wonders how she can stay standing after everyone _else_ she’s danced with.

“Mm. It’s nothing.” Byleth tries out the new step she taught him two dances ago, and smiles when she effortlessly twirls to the side before moving back to press against his chest. It isn’t as unnerving to have someone so close to him anymore, though perhaps that’s only limited to Father and the Black Eagles. And Flayn, because Byleth can’t bring himself to not trust her, after they’ve gone through a good chunk of the library books together.

Dorothea rolls her eyes up at him. “Why did I bother asking when I already know… you must miss Lin, don’t you?”

“Huh… Was it obvious?”

“ _Was it obvious?_ Byleth, you wear your emotions like you wear the uniform hat.” Dorothea pokes at the hat in question. “Very rarely, but when you do, it’s the most obvious thing about you. I’d call your sad, brooding expression like a kicked puppy’s, but I already said that about Ferdie, and I’d hate to be repetitive.”

Byleth laughs under his breath—he’d been around to witness that, when Ferdinand had tripped over a sword someone left lying around on the training grounds and spilled a box of pastries on the floor. He had looked so miserable, even Hubert had grudgingly plucked one off the dirt to help him clean up. “Say, Byleth,” Dorothea suddenly asks, “have you heard about the legend of the Goddess Tower?”

“Mm… the gatekeeper mentioned it, but I don’t really know what it’s about.”

Dorothea giggles. “They say that if two people go to the tower together at midnight today and make a wish at the very top, that wish will be granted.”

“Really? Who grants it?”

“Who knows. If I were a nice little believer, I’d say the goddess.” The music ends, the musicians already playing the beginning notes of the next song, and Byleth and Dorothea bow to each other. When Byleth looks up to meet Dorothea’s eyes, there’s a mischievous twinkle to the green color. “But instead, I think I’ll say it just takes a bit of faith magic.”

Afterwards, Byleth dances with Petra, Edelgard, and (to his horror) Claude, who teases him about the hat and brings up the legend of the Goddess Tower as well. “I wouldn’t put too much stock into it, though,” Claude tells him. Byleth dips him without warning, just to cut him off, but Claude lets himself gracefully fall into Byleth’s arms without complaint, to Byleth’s disappointment. “After all, wishes hardly come through without putting a bit more effort into them. And I can’t say the goddess would just grant all the wishes of hopeful couples tonight, with how many are bound to be there.”

“Do people really believe in that?” Byleth asks. He doesn’t know many other dance moves to show Claude, which, thinking about it, might be for the better. He’d probably stumble and fall if he tries. “It sounds completely fake to me. Does it have any background?”

“Sure, something-something about the goddess. You know, typical Church stuff.” Claude laughs. “But I think it’s more to do with the romance of the whole thing. You know, being alone up there at midnight… if you’re lucky, it snows a little too. I even saw Linhardt heading that way earlier. Guess he’s meeting up with someone there after the dance?”

For the first time in a while, Byleth forgets the rhythm of the box-step and steps on Claude’s foot. “ _Linhardt?_ ”

“You didn’t know?” Claude is very clearly trying to hide a grin. “I wonder who he could be seeing there. Perhaps it’s—”

“It’s either Hubert or Bernadetta,” Byleth instantly deduces. Both had gone back to their dorms early, and they’re friendly enough with Linhardt that Byleth can easily imagine either of them making a wish with him, or… whatever. Edelgard had retired as well, but Byleth knows they hardly get along aside from the occasional discussion on reason magic, which seems to be their one common interest.

Claude blinks. “Er, By. Are you so sure about that?”

Byleth frowns—perhaps it’s someone from another House, then. He may not know anyone by name, but he’s memorized their appearances easily enough, and the pale-haired girl from Golden Deer whom Byleth often sees with Linhardt isn’t here either. “Well… maybe it’s that girl from the Golden Deer,” Byleth ventures. “The one with white hair.”

“ _Lysithea?_ ” Claude chokes out, then bursts into a fit of laughter. Byleth’s tempted to dip him again and see if he cracks his skull on the floor while he’s distracted. “I don’t think she cares about anything aside from studying, much less _romance._ Even Marianne gets along with Linhardt better.”

“Hmm…” Byleth assumes Marianne is the blue-haired mage who he vaguely remembers from the Battle of the Eagle and Lion two months ago, and a quick glance around tells him she’s still here, sitting next to Hilda (that’s the pink-haired girl’s name, right) and sipping gloomily from a glass of water (he had not previously been aware one could look gloomy while doing that), so it can’t be her. But then who? Byleth can’t really think of anyone else. Bernadetta sounds like the most likely possibility right now, considering Hubert’s far from the superstitious type. “It’s probably Bernadetta, isn’t it?”

Claude looks exhausted. “Geez, By. If you’re so curious, why don’t you go see for yourself?”

“Won’t they think me strange?” Byleth protests, but it’s a weak argument considering he knows he can just hide in the shadows.

And he really, _really_ wants to know who Linhardt would meet up with. It’s odd. He’s never been this curious about something that isn’t any of his business. Thinking about it, Linhardt would probably tell him off for sneaking around and spying on them. And yet…

The music ends, and Claude gently detaches himself from Byleth to bow and smirk smugly. “Just go, By. Satisfy that curiosity of yours or whatever. One look won’t hurt, right? And I bet you’re exhausted from dancing—this is the perfect excuse to leave.”

He’s certainly right about one thing there. Byleth offers a nod, watching Claude return to sit with Marianne and Hilda, before he hurries over to grab a glass of water from a tray, down it in two gulps, and then race out of the hall before he can spend another second thinking about what to do.

A disgruntled Sothis materializes next to him once he escapes to the courtyard. “How could you run off like that without telling me, you imbecile! You know I get the most awful headaches if we are too far apart.”

“Right, right. Sorry. I forgot.” Byleth’s mostly taken to letting Sothis do whatever she wants as long as she’s within his sight, and he had seen her having the time of her life dancing away in her bare feet. Now he feels bad. “We can go back later. But…”

“Oh, poor you,” Sothis sighs, patting his hair. “It must be hard being everyone’s favorite classmate, hm? Even students from the other Houses were asking you for a dance…”

“I don’t even know their names,” Byleth mumbles. Outside of the celebrations, the exhaustion crashes down on him like a tidal wave, and now all he wants is to go back to his room and sleep. But… “Do you remember where the Goddess Tower is?”

Sothis perks up. “Why? You aren’t… _meeting someone_ there, are you?”

“No,” Byleth tells her, and Sothis slumps in obvious disappointment. “But Linhardt is.”

“What? _Him?_ ” Sothis actually laughs. “Why would _he_ be meeting anyone there? Unless…”

“Unless what?” Byleth presses. Sothis spends just as much time around Linhardt as Byleth does, though usually unwillingly—maybe she had noticed something to give him a clue? “Do you know who he might be seeing there?”

She smiles, looking terribly self-satisfied and terribly reminiscent of Claude. “You’re _awfully_ curious, aren’t you?”

“Well, I…” Byleth frowns. Despite knowing full well how this is entirely none of his business, he still can’t shake off the curiosity that latches onto him like a pesky fly he can’t shoo away. It’s a bother—a _confusing_ bother—but if Byleth can’t get rid of it, he might as well act on it. Besides, it’s not like he’s hurting anyone… right?

“Oh, well. No matter.” Sothis floats off towards where Byleth supposes the tower must be. “This way!”

It takes a bit of jogging, but the cold night air is refreshing for his tired muscles, and Byleth welcomes the mild chill—when he arrives at the foot of the Goddess Tower, he’s mildly surprised to hear faint chatter from within. “Well, well,” Sothis remarks, peering inside the first floor, “it looks like you and Linhardt aren’t the only ones checking in. This place is full of the little ones.”

“Claude did mention there’d probably be a lot of people…” If he were Linhardt, Byleth would seek out an area without anyone else to meet up with… whoever. And the place people most likely wouldn’t bother going all the way to is the very top of the tower. But, well, would Linhardt honestly have the energy to even make it halfway up? He barely has the motivation to get out of bed most days.

No way around it, he supposes. Byleth slips in the tower, staying well hidden in the shadows, and scours the couples mingling about before beginning the upwards climb.

It’s tedious and tiring, but nothing he isn’t used to. The couples grow more sparse as he climbs up, and by the time he’s reached the halfway mark, there are hardly any people around. Sothis is perched atop his head, snoozing away like his hair is her own personal pillow, but she blinks awake when Byleth stops for a short rest against the railing. “Are you tired already?” she asks, rubbing her eyes. “Hmm, but I want to go back to the ball… will you not dance again? Why, if I had a body of my own, I would sing and dance until my feet fell off—”

“Byleth?”

Sothis lets out a little shriek and disappears, retreating into some corner of Byleth’s head. Byleth himself turns to face the voice, though he finds he doesn’t really need to—he already knows who it is.

Still, Linhardt looks nice descending the staircase, framed by the gentle moonlight behind him.

“Linhardt.”

“So it is you.” He smiles, leaning against the railing like Byleth. “You’re late. I was beginning to think you’d never arrive.”

Byleth stares at him. “I’m… Ah… What?”

Linhardt tilts his head. “What?”

“We didn’t have plans to meet up, did we?”

“Well, no,” Linhardt allows, sounding more sheepish now, “but I can hope a little, can’t I? Anyway, you’re here now. That’s what matters.”

“So when you went here, you…” Byleth looks down. It’s too dark to see much of anything by, but he can make out their feet next to each other. It’s a little comical, for them to have stopped and settled for the middle of the tower instead of making it all the way up, like what Dorothea had said. “You were hoping to find me?”

Linhardt sighs. “I thought that was obvious.”

“It wasn’t,” Byleth murmurs.

“Well, you know now. So I suppose you—you—er, what is that on your head?”

“Huh?” Byleth turns to face Linhardt, and finds his gaze fixed just above him, but there’s nothing on his head except… “Oh. It looks strange, doesn’t it?” he asks, reaching up to touch his hat. He always forgets to wear it, but a few days ago Seteth had demanded every student wear the uniform they had been prescribed for the ball, and Byleth has no desire to aggravate the Archbishop’s right hand man any more than he probably already has.

Linhardt still looks distracted. “Hm?”

“It’s a size too big. Might be why it probably looks like a rat.” Byleth plucks the hat off his head. Even Father had teased him about it when he had first worn the complete uniform… this poor hat had been sitting in his closet for who knows how long before he took pity on it and brought it out to wear for tonight, but he supposes it’s back to the dust for this thing.

“No, no, don’t worry,” Linhardt laughs, shaking his head. Byleth pauses, arm halfway between holding the hat awkwardly by his side and placing the hat awkwardly back on his head. “It looks… cute.”

 _Cute…?_ “Really?”

“Um. Yes.”

Byleth frowns a little, feeling his concentration being challenged again. He’s rarely had to face that word before—what does Linhardt mean by it? And what should Byleth do? He looks down at the hat for a moment, soft and a bit rumpled in his grip, before an idea strikes him. “Then you wear it, Linhardt.”

“W—Wait, wha—”

Byleth steps closer and reaches up, mentally grumbling at the clear difference in height, and places the hat on Linhardt’s head, ruffling his soft hair. It suits him a lot more than it does Byleth, that’s for sure. “There.”

Linhardt’s cheeks look pink, though whether from the cold or from embarrassment, Byleth can’t say. Perhaps it’s both. “Why…?”

“It looks cute, right?” Byleth smiles.

For a moment, there’s nothing but the whisper of the wind blowing around them—then Linhardt laughs again, and he reaches up to tug at the ends of the hat. “I… I suppose… I think you misunderstood, but… oh, whatever. Yes, it’s cute.”

A comfortable quiet passes between them for a few seconds—awash in the soft glow of the moonlight, leaning against the creaky railing together with Linhardt, Byleth can feel his exhaustion draining away from him. It had been nice talking to and spending time with the rest of the Black Eagles, certainly, and he can probably even consider Claude something like a friend now, if a very pesky one, but somehow nothing and no one beats Linhardt’s presence.

He feels like _light,_ Byleth thinks—bright and soft at once, enveloping Byleth in the warmth of his glow.

“I assume someone’s told you about the legend of the Goddess Tower by now,” Linhardt says, voice low.

“Mm. Two people make a wish together here, and that wish will be granted.” Byleth pauses. “Though I think they have to be at the top of the tower, for it to work.”

“Really? What if the two people are at the halfway point on the staircase?” Linhardt smiles. “I wonder if they’ll be cursed forever. Either way, it’s a lovely legend, don’t you think?”

“It sounds…” Byleth casts around for an appropriate word and finds none. “Fake.”

Linhardt sighs. “I thought you’d say that.”

“Do you believe in it?”

“Do I believe in the goddess?” Linhardt returns. He’s fiddling with his hands, curling and uncurling them into fists. The ring on his finger glitters in the light. “I don’t have an answer to that. But if you asked me if I had faith in general, then I’d say yes. So there you have it.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, then speaks again. “Byleth, do you know of promise rings?”

Byleth frowns. “I don’t think so.”

“They’re exactly what the name implies. They’re symbols of a promise that two people have to uphold. A little like a promise incarnate, you could say.” Linhardt turns to face him, and sighs as he retrieves something from his uniform pocket. “You gave me a gift, some weeks ago. I’ve found one to give you back.”

“I told you not to—”

Byleth feels his next words die when he looks down at the ring Linhardt presents him.

It’s remarkably similar to the one Byleth had given him, simple and silver with a small crystal in the middle. It gleams a cheery green, like the verdance of a forest in full spring. “Here,” Linhardt says—whispers, really, with how soft his voice has gotten. “It’s called a prayer ring. Before buying it, you can pray to the goddess for whatever you like—health, safety, whatever—and the gremory selling it imbues that prayer into the ring, to decide the color of the crystal.”

“It’s… green,” Byleth points out, rather redundantly.

Linhardt smiles. “Yes. It is.”

“What did you pray for?”

“Hm. Perhaps someday I’ll tell you. Or perhaps you can find out for yourself. Now hold out your left hand, will you?”

Byleth does so. Linhardt takes his hand, slipping the band onto his ring finger, and it fits perfectly—the crystal winks up at him, as if sharing a secret only known to itself. “Promise me something, Byleth,” Linhardt murmurs. “Promise me we’ll meet again. Right here, in the halfway point of this silly tower, just the two of us… alright?”

“That’s—”

“I know it’s strange,” Linhardt cuts in, looking straight at him when he speaks this time, “and that it’s probably more than a little irrational. But we all made a promise to come back here at the monastery in five years’ time, didn’t we? Even the professor agreed, and he doesn’t seem the sentimental type. So… you can promise me this much too. Can’t you?”

Byleth swallows and looks down, anything to avoid direct eye contact, but this just means he’s treated to the sight of the twin crystals, ocean-blue and forest-green, blinking up at him. Linhardt’s still holding onto his hand, and the physical contact is so comforting, it’s almost frightening.

There’s almost zero chance Father and Byleth are going to uphold the five-year promise. Byleth doubts this one is any different.

But the rings glimmer in the moonlight, bright, optimistic. Hopeful, almost.

“Okay,” he says. “I promise.”

Linhardt heaves a relieved sigh, his breath gusting over Byleth’s wrist. “Thank you. I… hope you’ll always remember that.” He draws his hands away at last, and Byleth instantly misses the warmth. “One more thing. I charmed the rings to change color if the other person is in danger.” He smiles, and he looks a little more like himself now—one part excitable, one part curious, one part smug. “A complicated piece of magic, but I made it work.”

Byleth feels himself returning the smile. “Doesn’t this just mean I’ll be able to rush to your rescue all the time now?”

“Byleth.” Linhardt shakes his head, the hat just barely avoiding falling off. “As if you don’t do that enough already.”

Byleth toys with the ring for a good ten minutes.

Linhardt had left almost immediately after their conversation, citing sleepiness (as per usual) but declining Byleth’s offer to walk him back to his dorm, and Byleth had watched his back disappear down the staircase, the light still reflecting off his own ring. Byleth had stayed there, staring up at the moon for a while, before heading back down as well.

Sothis floats along beside him. Byleth’s never found a good enough word to describe how she moves, exactly, but _swimming through air_ sounds apt enough. “A prayer ring,” she muses aloud. “I’ve heard of those. They’re supposedly prayers to the goddess brought to life. Sounds like a sham and a gold trap, if you ask me.”

Byleth slips it off and on his finger, possibly for the fifth time now, still marveling at how perfectly it fits. “Hmm. But I wasn’t asking.”

“Ugh! Your rudeness never ceases to amaze me.” She flips to lie on her back in mid-air. Byleth has no idea how she does it. He supposes that if there’s one thing he envies about her lack of a physical body, it’s being able to do things like that. “Let me take a look at that. The green matches my hair, don’t you think?”

Byleth hands it over, and Sothis lifts it up to the faint lantern light in the reception hall. “Hmm… well, at least it doesn’t seem like any cheap trinket you can find in the discount market of some shabby town…”

“He’s a noble, Sothis,” Byleth reminds her. “It probably wasn’t worth much to him.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She tosses the ring back and forth between her hands, though it somehow doesn’t pass straight through her like most other objects—she’s been working on her limited tangibility, then. Then Sothis blinks and pauses, staring intently. “What’s this? There’s something engraved on the inside.”

“What?” Byleth reaches up to pluck the ring out of her hands—Sothis squawks in complaint, but Byleth leans out of her reach, peering at the tiny letters inscribed within… or are they letters at all? They don’t seem like any language he knows, yet there’s an unmistakable pattern to their composition, not just random scratches on the silver.

_There’s an engraving on the inside… in the old language…_

Sothis scrabbles to get at the ring, but Byleth bodily blocks her away—somehow he wants to keep whatever this means to himself, even if he doesn’t know a lick of the ancient tongue. “Let me read it, you menace! That’s in the old language, isn’t it? You don’t understand a single word! I can decipher it for you!”

“I can decipher it myself,” Byleth says. He tucks the ring deep in a secure pocket of his coat, telling the disappointed part of himself that he’ll wear it again when Sothis isn’t paying attention, and that’s that.

Sothis eventually stops struggling, instead settling onto his shoulders with a humongous pout. “Ugh. Fine! Whatever. It’s entirely _your_ loss, after all. I shall be patiently waiting for the day you get on your knees to plead for my assistance…” She trails off, and her eyes suddenly widen at something in the distance. “Byleth— _hide!_ ”

Byleth probably has his instincts to thank for pushing his initial reaction to question her to the side; he dives to hide within the shadows in the corners of the hall instead, automatically reaching for the Creator Sword but finding nothing there. _Right._ It was far too awkward to dance with—he only has a knife tucked in his coat pocket, which he supposes he’ll have to do with—

“Oh, why are you worrying about _weapons,_ it’s just the Archbishop,” Sothis grouses.

—it’s not like he’s half-bad with knives, even if he hasn’t had much time to practice using them with how engrossed he’s been studying magic recently… wait. _The Archbishop?_

He peers out, glad the black uniform helps him blend in with the dark—the Archbishop walks soundlessly across the hall, outlined by the flickering lantern light and her long hair flowing behind her. Unnecessarily regal, in Byleth’s honest opinion. “I wonder what she could be doing here, away from the ball she seemed so proud of,” Sothis remarks. “Hurry up and follow her already!”

 _Why?_ Byleth asks, although he’s already rising out of his crouch, never having concentrated harder on making his own steps soundless until now.

“You want to, don’t you?” Sothis says, rolling her eyes, but the action can’t disguise the evident excitement in her voice.

It’s difficult sneaking around when there are hardly any places to hide behind; Byleth has to ask Sothis to scout out hiding spots for him more than once, and several times he thinks he catches the Archbishop’s eyes on him, but her steps never seem to falter. “Is she going to the audience chamber?” Sothis muses. “Or… wherever her room is? I have never seen her room before. Does she sleep on the floor, do you think?”

_Hush._

“ _Hush?_ You’re the only one who can hear me!”

Movement flickers in the corner of his eye, and Byleth tenses to follow the Archbishop—but almost stumbles when he sees a flash of pale hair instead of green, black clothes instead of white. And then he smells it—that too-familiar sting of miasma, of dark magic. “Edelgard? Hubert?”

“ _Byleth?_ ” Edelgard hisses. Her violet eyes are just barely visible in the shadows of the opposite side of the corridor they’re both hiding away in. Beside her crouches Hubert, his eyes trained on the Archbishop’s back. “What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Byleth returns. He scurries along the hall to squeeze himself beside them, much to Hubert’s scorn. “You didn’t leave the ball to do this, did you?”

Edelgard shiftily avoids his gaze, which is answer enough in itself. Sothis barks out a laugh. “You two! You’re terribly alike, aren’t you?”

_Hush._

“Byleth. You are beginning to get on my nerves.”

“She is moving, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert murmurs. “Let us go.”

“Do you think she noticed us?” Edelgard follows as Hubert creeps along the side of the corridor—Byleth briefly notes she had even changed her usual heels out for a more sensible pair of sneakers, though they’re a size too big for her feet. “Our subtlety is a bit… dubious, now that I know the three of us were following her…”

“I shall hope our subtlety has not been compromised by our additional member.”

Byleth frowns. “I’m _subtle._ ” In truth, he’s far more used to storming in whatever bandits’ hideout he has to take care of for the day rather than sneak noiselessly around in the shadows, but that’s hardly something he’s going to tell them right now.

“I’m sure you are,” Edelgard tells him, while simultaneously giving him a look that says the exact opposite. When she turns to face back in front, however, she nearly rams straight into Hubert. “Oh! What’s wrong?”

Hubert scowls. “I… I have lost her. Please accept my most shameful apologies, Lady—”

“No matter,” Edelgard interrupts, waving the rest of his doubtless lengthy apology off. Hubert looks distraught. “I only had a feeling she would be up to something tonight, using the ball as a distraction for us students… but perhaps she simply decided to retire early?”

Byleth cocks his head to the side, meeting Sothis’ narrowed eyes. _Did you see her?_

She harrumphs. “Now remind me why I should answer to you now instead of _hushing up?_ ”

Byleth suppresses a sigh. _I am sorry. You may now stop hushing up._

“Anything else?”

_You are very great and mighty?_

Sothis shakes her head. “You are terrible at this, but very well. I hear something from over here.” She drifts towards one of the branching corridors, and Byleth wordlessly gestures for Edelgard and Hubert to follow him. “Someone… singing?”

_“In time's flow… see the glow of flames ever burning bright… On the swift river's drift, broken memories alight…”_

Edelgard and Hubert halt in their tracks. Byleth stands right beneath the moonlight shining down on the Archbishop—she sounds forlorn, almost downright miserable, but her voice is annoyingly beautiful. Beside him, Sothis stares at her blankly. “What is she singing?” Edelgard whispers. “It doesn’t sound like any of the songs from choir practice.”

“I do not know. Perhaps it was translated from the old language…” Hubert folds his arms over his chest. “Its composition sounds like a folk song as well—”

“It’s not nice to follow someone around, Byleth.”

Byleth feels more than sees Hubert instantly drag Edelgard back into the corridor, and Sothis jumps in surprise, but oddly he feels nothing when the Archbishop pauses in her singing to turn and face him. All he does is stare at her unnervingly calm smile, letting the silence tick on for another few seconds, before he speaks. “I heard something.”

Her smile refuses to leave. “Why don’t you return to the ball? You certainly seemed like you were having fun. Or did you just arrive from the Goddess Tower?”

Briefly Byleth wonders if that place is supposed to be off-limits to students. If so, the staff have done a terrible job at keeping that rule enforced. “What about you? Should you not be at the ball as well?”

“Hmm. I do adore the students, but I needed a break from the festivities.” She turns away to look out the window, moonlight washing over her face like a blessing from the goddess. “If you are here, I assume you must feel the same way.”

She’s right, which is why Byleth doesn’t bother answering.

The Archbishop closes her eyes and smiles again—Byleth hadn’t realized she had stopped—but the action looks strained this time, almost forced. “Byleth… were you truly never exposed to the Church’s teachings, in all your life? Your father was the Captain of the Knights of Seiros before he left with you, after all.”

 _Before he left with me…_ Byleth still hasn’t found the time to ask Father about the conversation he had promised, in between everything that’s been happening. And sometimes he tends to zone out for hours on end while he’s fishing, too, but—he bites back the question that nearly slips out and responds with, “No. I never knew much about the Church until this year.”

“I see. What a shame… but what do you think about it all?”

“The teachings?” Byleth’s first reaction is to frown, but he reins that in before it can show on his face—oddly enough he wants to keep his emotions away from the Archbishop, if only so he can feel a smidgen of control. “I don’t particularly care for them.”

Her face falls, as Byleth had been expecting. He supposes he should feel a pang of guilt, but really, he thinks _she_ should have expected his response in the first place. “I suppose… It is often difficult to accept new concepts once you have lived so long without them. What of the goddess? Surely you have some opinion on her.”

Byleth’s tempted to reply with _I don’t particularly care for her, either,_ but he supposes that would be a bit of a lie. It isn’t that he cares for her, or that he _doesn’t,_ but… “I still don’t know much about her,” he says. The honest truth has always worked for him, after all. “But the idea of her does not sound… awful.”

Maybe he could have phrased that better. Well, it isn’t as if he cares enough to try anyway.

The Archbishop relaxes at this, her smile becoming more genuine. “Lovely. That, at least, is a start.”

Is it, Byleth wonders.

“The night is growing late,” she muses, turning back to look out the window again. Her eyes slip closed, as if to bask in the moon’s luminescence. “Run along now, Byleth. Get some sleep—it would do you no good to be tired tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Byleth says. He’s not sure what else there is to respond with. Maybe _goodnight,_ but the word tastes wrong on his tongue, and so he swallows it down and turns his back on the Archbishop, feeling terribly vulnerable as he does so.

“May the goddess Sothis protect you.”

Everything skids to a halt.

Only Byleth’s last thread of self-preservation keeps him from whirling around to stare at the Archbishop—but he supposes freezing in place is just as bad a reaction, because she asks, “Is something wrong?” from behind. He swallows—the air feels like needles finding home in his skin—the shadows, suddenly more invasive than familiar—his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth—

“No,” he says. “Nothing.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply before leaving as quickly as possible, breaking into a run as soon as he’s out of the Archbishop’s line of sight. Byleth sprints out into the empty corridor, slumping against a stone wall and struggling to get oxygen back in his screaming lungs. _What was that about? Sothis?_

“I don’t—I don’t know!” she cries. She doesn’t materialize into her semi-physical form, instead curled up atop the odd throne in Byleth’s mind, tugging at her hair. “I… How could the goddess of this world bear my name? And the song that woman was singing! It was so familiar—did I once sing that song to someone?”

_Sothis—_

“No, no,” she continues, evidently not listening, “I _wrote_ that song—and yet! If that were so, how could she be singing it? I—I cannot understand—”

 _Sothis!_ If she were here, Byleth would have reached out to touch her hair already—she always calms down at the promise of contact, even if he doubts she can feel it. _Please, try… try taking this a little slower. I cannot keep up._

He expects her to (metaphorically) swat his ear and tell him off for being insensitive, but instead she only heaves a great sigh before appearing before him, hovering in the air but staring down at the floor, her expression befuddled. “I… I cannot understand a thing,” she murmurs. “My name… is it a coincidence? I can hardly believe it is so simple. And that song… what was it?”

 _Maybe we can think about this in the morning. Or when we get back to our room._ Byleth casts a look around the dark hallway, but finds he doesn’t need to—he can hear the faintest hints of approaching footsteps, accompanied by the smell of miasma tingeing the air. “Hubert?”

“Byleth.” Gold eyes flash at him from the shadows; beside Hubert, Edelgard steps into the faint torch light, frowning in concentration. “Are you unharmed?”

“Did you think the Archbishop would harm me?”

“Anything is possible,” Edelgard argues. “What did you two talk about? Ah! And for your information, we did not run away. We lied in wait to make sure you would have backup. If she did try to attack you, that is.” She looks perfectly proud of herself.

Byleth scratches his neck. “Thank you. I think.” It’s reassuring, though it would have been nice to have them actually _with_ him at the time. Still, he’s glad they had stayed nearby, even if he suspects they had only done so to eavesdrop on their conversation. “She asked me about my thoughts on the Church and its teachings.”

A strange expression passes over Edelgard’s face—something like a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. Apprehensive curiosity. Byleth hadn’t known that was possible. “And? What did you say?”

“That I don’t particularly care about them.” He doesn’t see how it’s any of her business, but Byleth supposes there’s no harm in telling her. What would Edelgard do with the information anyway?

Edelgard sighs, leaning against the wall as well. Hubert finally emerges from the shadows, still glancing behind him as if expecting to see the Archbishop running straight for them with a sword at the ready. “I see. How bold of you, to tell the Archbishop of the Church herself that you do not care for them… I suppose only you can do that, Byleth.”

“Hmm. Is that so.”

“Aren’t you something of a favorite of hers?” Edelgard asks dryly. “Anyway, this is enough lurking around in the dark for tonight. I, for one, am exhausted. Next time, Hubert, you and Byleth may go sneaking off together, I am simply not cut out for—” She halts mid-speech, blatantly staring at Byleth’s face.

Byleth stares back. “What?” Is there something on his face?

“You…” Edelgard tilts her head, confusion scrunching her brow. “Weren’t you wearing your hat for once tonight? Have you lost it?”

“My…? Oh.” Byleth reaches up to touch his head, absently patting down the flyaway strands there. He’d forgotten all about it after everything else. “I must’ve left it with Linhardt.”

Edelgard makes a little noise of distress. Hubert’s expression morphs from mildly curious to moderately sickened. “You _what,_ now?” Edelgard carefully asks.

“I must’ve left it with Linhardt,” Byleth dutifully repeats. He reaches down to smoothen the rest of his uniform, messy and wrinkled from the brief run—Edelgard follows his every reaction with a sort of growing horror on her face. “We were at the Goddess Tower,” he adds, after a moment’s thought. Perhaps they’re curious to know why Linhardt hadn’t been at the ball. “We were—”

“That’s enough,” Hubert interrupts, his expression having morphed from moderately sickened to absolutely disgusted. Byleth frowns. He hadn’t said anything _wrong,_ had he? “Please keep your… _escapades_ to yourself, Byleth.”

“But you asked—”

“In the _Goddess Tower?_ ” Edelgard whispers, sounding utterly scandalized. “Byleth! I never knew—”

Hubert places a hand behind her back and gently but hurriedly pushes her down the corridor. “Goodnight,” he calls, and they’ve already turned the corner and are out of sight when Byleth blinks.

Sothis shakes her head. “Oh, to be a blundering fool with not a shred of common sense.”

“Even you, Sothis? I didn’t understand a thing they were saying.”

“Just like always.” She rests her chin atop his shoulder, her sigh ruffling the hair curling at the base of his neck. “May we go back to our room as well now? I am terribly exhausted.”

Byleth cranes his neck to look at her, though he’s already setting off towards the dorms. “But I thought you wanted to go back to the ball?”

“I do not like whoever taught you sarcasm, but do be like me and _hush._ You are every bit as exhausted as I am. Let us go to sleep. Please.” She disappears back into his head after that, though not before her long hair tickling his nose makes Byleth sneeze.

Finally alone in the darkness, Byleth pulls out the prayer ring tucked deep in his pocket and slips it back on his finger. The crystal gleams in the narrow strips of moonlight from the window, and he wonders again what Linhardt must have prayed for, to the goddess named Sothis.

Monica joins them in battle for the first time.

There’s hardly any time in between fending off demonic beasts left and right to observe her, but Byleth tries his best anyway. She doesn’t use any of the usual weapons, like a nice sword or lance, brandishing a strange-looking dagger instead—the blade is curved, and it _stinks_ of dark magic, so much so that Byleth can smell it several feet away. He tries exchanging looks with Hubert, but the other student’s probably spent enough time around Monica by now that he can hardly care about it anymore.

“Do you like it?” she chirps at him. Byleth blinks—had he been caught staring? “Looks a little weird, right? Its name’s Athame.”

“Oh. I see.” Byleth rolls the word around in his head— _Athame._ Even the name sounds dark.

When Monica smiles at him again, her grin seems to stretch a bit too far over her face. Byleth wordlessly turns away and throws himself back into fighting.

Something about Monica has always unnerved him. She rarely attends class—even Linhardt and Bernadetta go to more lectures—and when she does, Byleth doubts she ever listens. Her behavior’s annoyed Father more than once, that’s for certain, but he hasn’t bothered to try and get her attention again after the first few times had failed. And she’s never joined them on any missions either, either mysteriously absent or citing dizziness, so Byleth has rarely seen her any closer than this.

He can’t say he likes her. At all.

The demonic beast howls—Byleth lets the Creator Sword snap back into its complete form and casts his other arm out for a fire spell before the monster can crush one of the defenseless students under its claws. Ferdinand rushes in on his horse, his lance catching the underside of the beast’s front leg, drawing a streak of black blood that spills and pools onto the grass—then it’s Bernadetta firing a volley of arrows from behind a block of debris, finding home in the distracted beast’s vulnerable eyes and mouth.

It bellows, a terrible, choked sound from all the arrows that must have gone in its throat—then it sways and falls, sending up a cloud of dust as it hits the ground. Byleth dives for cover as soon as he sees Ferdinand sweep the student up on his horse and gallop out of the way. When the dust clears, he stands and opens his mouth to call the other two back—

He pauses. The beast is gone. In its place—

“F-Ferdinand! Byleth!” Bernadetta squeaks. She’s closest to the body lying on the ground, her entire frame trembling as she backs away from it. “W-Who… T-They…”

Ferdinand rounds back after safely delivering the student nearer to the exit, almost falling off his horse when he sees the body. “A student?” he exclaims, clambering off to crouch beside the unmoving student. Byleth does the same—he can tell at a glance there’s no hope for them, but the words get stuck in his throat at the desperate hope in Bernadetta’s and Ferdinand’s expressions. “Did they… perhaps get caught beneath the beast?”

“H-How? The monster just disappeared!”

“But—it had just been here not two seconds ago, had it not! It cannot have simply up and gone—”

“That’s _exactly_ what happened, when the dust cleared, i-it was just—”

Ferdinand’s horse neighs impatiently, as if sensing Byleth’s thoughts to tell them to calm down, and Ferdinand reaches up to stroke its mane. “It—It will do us no good to stand here and fret,” Ferdinand declares, carefully lifting the student up in his arms and placing them on the back of his horse. “Let us reconvene with Professor Jeralt first, yes? Byleth, do you—do you know where he might be?”

Byleth nods. The sounds of fighting have been dwindling for a while now, which means the skirmish up ahead can only be Father facing off with the last beast. He checks to make sure Bernadetta’s alright before leading the way.

He’s only been to the abandoned chapel once before today—a few weeks ago he had gone here with Father to scout the place out, as ordered by the Archbishop, and they had found nothing of note, though there were plenty of dark, shadowy hiding spaces that made both of them think otherwise. Even now there’s nothing particularly interesting hidden in the rubble or anything, and Byleth can’t help but think there’s something more to this than just a number of demonic beasts infiltrating the monastery, if they had _infiltrated_ the place at all. If they had just been here all along in the first place, on the other hand…

“Professor!” someone—no, Byleth knows that voice—Petra shouts.

Byleth looks up, shaking his thoughts away—the demonic beast up ahead is bleeding from numerous injuries all over its body, but somehow still standing. Hubert is on his knees behind a boulder, Edelgard bent over him and pressing down on his bloodstained arm—Father is on his mount, lance poised and ready to attack. When the demonic beast roars, the telltale sign it’s going for a dangerous, wide-ranged attack, Petra fires arrows at the wound on its leg, making it groan and buckle down. Then Father runs, runs, runs—and _throws_ his lance towards the beast’s throat, exposed when it had raised its neck. Blood spurts and splatters out like a fountain, washing over its own body.

Bernadetta shudders and averts her eyes. For once, Byleth wants to, as well. If his theory is right, he doesn’t want to think about how the student in that beast is feeling right now.

Linhardt, Caspar, and Ashe return from the northeastern part of the area, with Dorothea doing her best to heal the limp body in Caspar’s arms—Father looks over both the students the two groups brought back, along with the other two Edelgard has apparently been lugging around with no problem, but sighs in frustration. “The demonic beasts were actually students? How’s that even possible? Last time something like this happened…”

“It was with Miklan, of Gautier,” Byleth says. “He was wielding a Hero’s Relic without a Crest.”

Father scratches his neck. “Yeah, I don’t see any ancient weapons lying around here. But the transformation’s the same, isn’t it?” He plucks his lance off the ground, shaking the black blood off and subsequently splattering it all over Byleth’s coat. Byleth sighs—the cleaning staff at the monastery are going to curse his name for this, he knows it. “Come with me to the chapel. Maybe we’ll find something there.”

Byleth follows sedately, casting a glance behind him at the rest of his classmates—Edelgard’s taken over, instructing them to stay calm and not to panic, though he’s sure she’s uneasy as well, judging by her worried expression. And Byleth feels the same—not about the demonic beasts (or lack thereof), but there’s something itching at his instincts, telling him something isn’t _right,_ something’s _missing…_

He pauses at that thought, and does a headcount. Edelgard, Hubert, Dorothea, Caspar, Ashe, Petra, Ferdinand, Bernadetta, Linhardt. Everyone accounted for. So why—?

“Hey, kid!” Father calls, and Byleth snaps out of his thoughts. “What’re you spacing out for?”

“Sorry.” He catches up quickly, but there doesn’t seem to be anything very interesting in the old chapel—mostly dust and debris, among other things. No damning evidence. No residue of dark magic either, the sharp stench of miasma that Byleth can still remember Solon smelling of. And yet…

Father shakes his head. “Nothing. This must have been something to do with Remire.”

“Remire?”

“Alois mentioned the students looked like they were acting strange, like they weren’t in their right minds.” Father starts pacing, disturbing dust with every step, and Byleth suppresses a sneeze. “Then demonic beasts started showing up, one after the other. Makes sense if you think the beasts were the transformed students, but how…”

“Professor! And Byleth!” someone calls—their voice is high and cheery, terribly out of place in the situation. Byleth turns to see— _oh, right_ —Monica by the doorway, waving at the two of them. “We’re gonna help bring the students back to the academy. Thought I’d tell you!”

“Right, right.” Father turns back to give the chapel one more assessing glance, then joins Monica at the entryway; Byleth trails behind, cocking his head and sniffing the air. Still no dark magic, but there is— _something,_ he thinks, something strange and heavy and so very _subtle…_ “Run along now.”

Monica smiles, so sweetly Byleth almost wants to gag. Sothis, for her part, pretends to. “Thanks for all your help, sir.” She skips around behind Father, clearly intent on following him back, and Byleth refocuses his attention on the odd feeling prickling at his skin.

Something about the chapel—no, perhaps it isn’t the chapel itself, but something _nearby—_

He whirls around, but—“Too slow,” he hears—and then, and then.

Byleth hits the ground hard, which might be the last thing he feels before searing, overwhelming pain overtakes everything else—it’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before, exploding from behind his eyelids and racing throughout his entire body until he feels nothing else but the numbing, all-encompassing heat. _Like dark magic,_ he manages to think—like how mire feels when it eats at his skin, like how miasma feels when it clogs up his lungs. “Father,” he thinks he says, but all he hears is a harsh ringing in his ears—no, screaming? _Voices,_ like that of a banshee’s, or the buzzing of a swarm of insects—

“ _Byleth!_ ” he hears—“What the fuck have you _done,_ ” someone’s shouting, and he thinks that must be Father, because only Father swears that hard. Byleth should do something, maybe, should reach out and touch his arm and tell him to calm down, because Father makes the worst decisions when he’s mad, but everything feels so _heavy,_ and he can’t quite muster the energy to move…

“B… Byleth?” a shaking, trembling voice whispers— _Edelgard?_ Byleth had never known Edelgard could sound so vulnerable—then, “No! Monica, no! What are you doing?”

“Look at him!” A snarl. “Proud wielder of the Sword of the Creator—a dog like him would only get in the way of my brilliant plan!”

“How dare you, how fucking _dare_ you—” The _clang_ of a lance against the ground—and still Byleth can’t think, can’t see, can’t do anything but writhe on the floor, because it feels like animals are clawing their way out of his insides, borne from his bones and tearing through his skin until they break free, from his face to his arms to his legs. He wants to scream, to cut his own chest open with the Creator Sword and put himself out of this misery, but pain lashes his limbs together and forces them immobile, so much so that all he can do is cough uselessly. Wetness dribbles down his chin—he recognizes the warmth of blood near instantly.

Is this what dying feels like? He never thought it would hurt so much.

“Hey—Byleth, hey, kid,” Father’s saying, and Byleth feels a hand, warm and rough from calluses on his cheek. Without thinking Byleth leans into the touch, so terribly comforting it’s almost painful. “Don’t—hey, come on, look at me, kid, open your eyes—Byleth, c-come on…”

Byleth has never heard Father speak so softly, so brokenly—he pries his eyes open, unaware they had been closed at all, and looks up at Father’s face right above him. He looks destroyed, desolate, and it takes a moment for Byleth to realize it must be because of him, and the guilt hits harder and faster than anything else. “Sorry,” he croaks—“sorry,” he says again, because he doesn’t think he’s ever meant one word more.

“You can’t,” Father says, stroking his cheek. His hands are so gentle, so caring—Byleth wants to close his eyes and lie here forever in his embrace. “You can’t go, kid. Not you too. Please, just hang in there, okay? We’re gonna… We’re gonna get you a healer, and it’ll be alright, you’ll be fine, please, just keep your eyes open…”

Beside him Edelgard moves into view, her long hair brushing Byleth’s forehead and obscuring what little of his vision remains. “Byleth,” she gasps, “you—you can’t die, this—no, I d-didn’t—I don’t want—”

“Edelgard,” Byleth sighs. There’s still so much he wants to know about her—why she distrusts the Church, how she learned to fight with an axe, what her favorite flowers are. “Sorry.”

“It’s dark magic,” Edelgard nearly shouts, and it takes a moment for Byleth to register both her words and the glimmer of tears in her eyes. (Tears—Byleth had never understood them before, the way they sprang to life at the sensation of grief. Then again, he doesn’t understand a great number of things still, and he doubts he ever will now.) “It’s dark magic, Byleth, surely—surely you can do something, please—”

 _Dark magic…_ Byleth sighs, the small, singular motion sending waves of pain cascading through his chest. _Like miasma, like mire… like a banshee, like a swarm… like death._ An amalgamation of different dark magic spells, forced together into one to wreak deathly havoc on a human body—when he thinks of it that way, rather than just unbelievable, unending pain, it actually sort of makes sense.

After all, it isn’t _hard_ to control mire. It isn’t hard to wrestle control of Hubert’s miasma when they’re sparring. It isn’t hard to cast Nosferatu for the dark magic it really is. So thinking about it like that—

Byleth lets his eyes slip closed, focuses every nerve of his being on Father’s hand, using that as his anchor—and then orders, _Obey me._

For one wavering second, the pain stutters, as if uncertain.

Its brief absence has Byleth zeroing in on the most ridiculous things, like the exact shade of brown Father’s eyes are, or the individual strands of Edelgard’s hair. Had he always been able to see things this way, so close and so clear? Why had he never appreciated it before, his eyes and his hands and the way his blood felt so warm running through his skin?

Then the magic flares back, and this time it hurts a hundred times more—Byleth gags on something in his throat, only barely managing to cough up a thick clot of blood, so dark it’s almost black. Father makes a distressed noise and calls his name, and Byleth reaches for him blindly, grabs onto his arm and steadies himself through the agony. _Obey me,_ he thinks, again and again, squeezing his eyes shut— _Obey me,_ he thinks, and suddenly he’s with Sothis in that dimly-lit room in his mind, her hair fanned out behind her.

“Focus, Byleth,” she’s murmuring, clasping her hands around his own, and he thinks he can almost feel the warmth. “I am with you. You can do this.”

He breathes in, smells the earthy scent of the forest he has always gotten from Father. _Obey me._

The magic stirs, as if confused. Byleth can feel it, the malice, the killing intent, the sneer behind Monica’s sweet smile—

_Obey me._

The pain ripples, subsides. For a precious moment, there is nothing but an ache in his back and Father, staring down at him with a mixture of horror, concern, and desperate hope.

_Obey me._

Something tightens around his chest, like a snake seizing its prey, sinking fangs into his heart—Byleth lurches forward, a curse tumbling out of his mouth, but somehow the pain brings something else to the forefront of his mind.

He presses a shaking hand to his chest, and feels nothing.

Byleth may not be an expert on how the human body works, but he knows how it dies. He knows how best to slit a man’s throat for the quickest death. He knows how much blood one can lose before they are gone.

He knows everyone, every person, has a heartbeat. He has felt it under his palms as he checked the bodies of his victims, has felt the beat of it as he drove his sword into their bodies.

Byleth presses a shaking hand to his chest. There is no heartbeat. There is nothing.

_Obey me. Leave me!_

He shudders when he feels the exact moment the magic rushes out of him, all at once, through the stinging wound on his back—the stench of miasma fills the air, so thick that even Father and Edelgard cough and scramble away from the cloud of darkness drifting up to the chapel ceiling. The pain is but a distant memory now, exhaustion taking its place—still Byleth raises a hand to Father’s face, touches his cheek and feels wetness slide over his fingers.

“You’re crying,” Byleth says. He thinks there might be awe in his voice, or a trembling, fragile kind of relief. “I never thought… I’d see the day.”

“You…” Father stares down at him, eyes wide. Vaguely, Byleth registers Edelgard beside them, her gaze filled with trepidation and hope at once. “You’re alive? You’re alright, kid?”

Byleth curls up against Father’s chest and slumps atop him. “Carry me back.”

“How—goddess, I—”

“Carry me back, _please._ ”

“You’re gonna give me a fucking aneurysm, I swear to the Saints,” Father says, or maybe sobs, because Byleth can’t hear much now that he’s buried his face in Father’s shoulder. He wraps his arms around Father’s torso all the same, closing his eyes, focusing on his steady breathing and Father’s steady heartbeat.

The miasma in the air fades with the rest of the dust, but Byleth thinks the memory of it will remain with him forever: hungry, sadistic, murderous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be NO major character death in this house
> 
> -[LINHARDT IN THE HAT!!!](https://twitter.com/AWDEKO/status/1210059090140913664) it's been 4 months already at the time of posting this but thank you so much still chan 😭  
> -my friend gave me a mood ring when i was writing this chapter and the past one and of course i absolutely _had_ to insert that here somehow  
> -why did monica attack byleth instead of jeralt? because in-game i could never figure out why she attacked jeralt in the first place anyway (not even in CF, i think???), so i assumed it was because she (or edelgard) thought the captain of the knights of seiros would be a formidable opponent in the war with the church. but now jeralt is the black eagles' professor, and edel wouldn't want to kill someone who might be a strong ally, right? so monica attacked byleth instead (not under edel's orders, as implied by their dialogue), because seeing him wield the creator sword sort of gave her the impression that he's more likely to ally with the church than for them.
> 
> next chapter: i don't even know how to describe it without giving everything away


	14. guardian moon — “don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once Professors Manuela and Hanneman finally release Byleth from their clutches—Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever had to answer so many questions about dark magic before—the first thing he does is seek out Edelgard.
> 
> This unfortunately means he almost gets an axe to the face from his very irritated House leader. “Good evening,” he starts, with is a pretty good conversation opener, in his opinion.
> 
> “Byleth,” Edelgard says testily, “I am glad you’ve been released from bedrest, but it is also the dead of night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[it’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYPWxymohWs) _
> 
> thank you for the comments!! they really do help with making these chapters easier to post :") on that note we've hit the 100k mark, which makes it perfect for binge reading in this time of quarantine

Once Professors Manuela and Hanneman finally release Byleth from their clutches—Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever had to answer so many questions about dark magic before—the first thing he does is seek out Edelgard.

This unfortunately means he almost gets an axe to the face from his very irritated House leader. “Good evening,” he starts, with is a pretty good conversation opener, in his opinion.

“Byleth,” Edelgard says testily, “I am glad you’ve been released from bedrest, but it is also the dead of night.”

“Right. Yes.” Byleth supposes he probably should have waited until morning and not assaulted her room door in the aforementioned dead of night, but some things can’t be helped, and right now one of those is his patience. “But I wanted to talk to you about something. About Monica, specifically.”

Edelgard visibly tenses at the name; if she were an animal, Byleth thinks her hackles would have risen by now. Somewhere at the back of his head, he’s aware Hubert, in the room right beside Edelgard’s, is probably listening in and has several daggers at the ready, but Byleth can’t bring himself to care. If anything, he had more or less expected it. “What about her?”

“May I come in?” His legs are already complaining—the walk from the infirmary to the dorms wouldn’t be much but a bit of exercise if he weren’t still exhausted from the chapel incident.

Edelgard’s grip tightens around her axe. “Don’t try anything.”

Byleth stares at her. “I am… not going to assassinate you?” It comes out sounding more like a question than an answer, and Edelgard looks slightly confused, so he decides to add, “Hubert is right next door, after all. If I were to kill you, I would at least try to do it elsewhere.”

“You know,” Edelgard tells him, sighing as she opens the door wider, “you are downright awful at putting people at ease. In case no one’s told you that yet.”

She offers him a seat on the chair by her study desk, the books and papers there neatly organized, and Byleth gratefully takes it while Edelgard settles at the very edge of her bed, axe still in hand, wariness still in place. Byleth’s almost glad—it’d be stranger of her to have her guard down with him in her room, alone, in the middle of the night. “I don’t know where she is, if that’s what you were wondering,” Edelgard says.

“I thought so. It’s fine.” Father had told him he had tried to rush Monica with his lance, which is slightly amusing now that Byleth thinks about it—a teacher, trying to attack his own student—but someone who looked remarkably similar to Solon had appeared out of nowhere and deflected the lance, then grabbed Monica and warped them elsewhere.

And while all that had been happening, Byleth had been essentially dead to the world, which he’s still a little annoyed about. He could have at least gotten to watch what happened to his attacker.

“I wanted to ask how you knew her instead.”

Edelgard gives him an odd look. “What do you mean?”

“You and Hubert were the ones who talked to her the most,” Byleth says, idly noting the exact moment Edelgard’s eyes narrow. “You always looked serious. You spoke in whispers. You looked like you already knew each other. And when she—attacked me—”

He swallows. It isn’t as if the memory pains him to remember, but he’s never seen Father cry until then, and he wishes terribly he never had. _Not you, too,_ he had pleaded, and—

Byleth shakes the thoughts away. “When she attacked me. You were there. As if you… knew.”

“I did not,” Edelgard icily responds, her grip on her axe so tight her hand is shaking. “Byleth. I would never have allowed her to attack you, if I had known she was planning to do it.”

“You aren’t denying everything else I said,” Byleth points out, his voice slow and careful. This is dangerous territory he’s treading, he knows, and he’s honestly starting to wonder if he should have left this conversation for the daytime, but somehow he doesn’t think he would have been able to sleep another night without talking to her about this. “Please tell me the truth, Edelgard.”

Silence—if Byleth strains his ears, he’s fairly sure he can hear a third person breathing beside him, just behind the wall separating Edelgard’s room from Hubert’s. Then Edelgard sighs, turning away from his gaze. “You remember what I asked, before,” she murmurs, “about not trusting the Church.”

Byleth nods. The memory is vague, but he can recall Edelgard asking him the question, then immediately waving it off.

She gives him a cautious look. “I never let you answer me, back then. What would you have said?”

“I don’t,” he tells her, plain and simple. “Not at all.”

Another moment of silence. Byleth hopes there isn’t some sort of listening device in this room, and that the Archbishop isn’t currently storming down the hallways with a sword in hand ready to chop his head off. Or, Byleth muses, maybe she’ll punch him in the face. A few months back, someone had spread around a rumor that the Archbishop is apparently skilled in brawling, and Seteth had almost suffered a conniption when Father had offhandedly mentioned it to him during dinner.

Edelgard sighs again, shaking him out of his rapidly-drifting thoughts. “I see. I… feel the same, Byleth. And—I know a few people who do, too.”

The room grows cold. “You…”

“I can’t tell you more than that,” she interrupts, voice hard with finality. “But trust me—”

“Trust you?” he repeats, shooting up from the chair. If he were a normal person, he would have snapped, have shouted, have probably screeched the words—but right now Byleth can only focus on the chill in the room, the curdle in his gut—and he thinks he isn’t a normal person at all, anyway. “You—Have you allied yourself? With—With them?” _With Monica, who almost killed me—with Solon, who did all those things to the people of Remire, who almost killed—_

“It isn’t like that!” Edelgard exclaims, standing up as well. The blade of her axe looks deathly sharp in the dim candlelight, and the Creator Sword at Byleth’s side hisses to be wielded. “I never asked Monica to—to hurt you! I never asked Solon to conduct that _experiment_ in Remire Village—”

“He _hurt Linhardt,_ ” Byleth says, and he only realizes his voice sounds different after he speaks—it sounds a little like how glass cracks and shatters, or when he swings a training sword too hard and it snaps in half against his target.

 _Broken,_ his mind supplies. It sounds a little like Sothis. _Hurt. Betrayed._

Another emotion he had been perfectly fine never knowing about, until now.

Edelgard’s expression softens at that, her shoulders slumping downward just the slightest bit, and yet Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever seen her quite as vulnerable as now. “I never asked for that, either,” she says, voice low, as if she’s trying to keep it from shaking. “Please, Byleth, believe me. If you cannot trust me, you can believe me, can’t you? I would never hurt you, nor Professor, nor any of our classmates. I… I only want…”

She trails off, and Byleth doesn’t prompt her to continue. A part of him still wants to run out of this room and never look back, or perhaps swing the Creator Sword right now and let Edelgard know how it feels to be _broken,_ to be _hurt—_ wants to grab a fistful of mire, to show her the rotting skin and tell her _this is what Linhardt felt, when Solon made my own magic turn on him—_

But a part of him sees her as she is now, trembling, staring at the floor, and stupidly, foolishly wants to believe her.

“I only want to help,” she finally says. “Not in the way so many people are trying. Not in the way people might believe in, or find justice in. But I want to—” She breaks off again, shaking her head, and lifts her gaze to meet Byleth’s eyes. “You understand I do not know how much time I have left,” Edelgard manages. “Every morning I open my eyes not knowing if it will happen again.”

Byleth’s grip on the Creator Sword falters. “What do you…”

Her lips curl downward in a pained scowl. “I had siblings, once. They are all gone now, because of the very same people I have chosen to ally myself with.” She flicks her wrist, the sharp movement almost spurring Byleth into action, but—

A faint purple glow, the same shade of Edelgard’s eyes—a mass of curling, swirling lines, intertwined with each other and forming the vague shape of a flame.

The same shape Byleth has seen—once in an underground dungeon, and numerous more times in scratchy, loopy handwriting.

“When I was a child, they ran experiments on my siblings and I,” Edelgard says, voice thick with bitterness. “The objective was to implant a major Crest within one of us. Now here I stand, the fruit of their labor, with the same Crest of Flames you bear. But their lives—and many other innocents—were sacrificed for that cause. For _me._ ” She spits the word out, as if disgusted.

“Dozens of people dead for one measly Crest. And what does the Church do? They preach about goodwill and service but refuse to take action against this corrupt system they have set up to benefit only themselves. Do they mean to tell me,” she snarls, “that my family suffered and _died_ for an understandable, forgivable reason? That this _Crest_ was worth their pain, not even half the pain I relive every night in my dreams?”

For a tense few seconds, she’s silent again, her breathing heavy—when she speaks again, she lets her hand drop, and the Crest of Flames fades into the darkness. Byleth watches it as it disappears, its outline imprinted in his mind’s eye. “Every morning, I open my eyes,” she repeats, voice dripping with a despair Byleth has never been so acquainted with, “and curse myself, for allying with their killers.”

Byleth stares blankly down at the dark liquid in his cup.

“What?” Father grunts, lifting his own glass to his mouth and taking a long sip. “It’s not like I have tea around here. And you look dead on your feet. Were you up late last night?”

“A bit.” That conversation had been disastrous, but Byleth isn’t about to tell Father about it. He figures Edelgard can do it herself, when she so wishes. If she so wishes. With a sigh, Byleth tries the coffee, and finds it just as awful as the last time he had tasted it. “Will you finally tell me everything? About the Church, the Archbishop, my birth?”

“You sure don’t beat around the bush,” Father sighs. “Though I guess I should’ve expected that.” He leans forward and pushes a worn journal across the desk, towards Byleth. “You’ll find most of your answers in there. And some questions you might not have thought to ask, either. Now read that and let me enjoy this coffee for one minute, kid.” He punctuates the end of his sentence with another sip.

Byleth reaches for the journal and flips it open. The dates are far back, much too early to be of any particular help—he skims through the pages until his eyes land on _Day 20 of the Horsebow Moon._

“His handwriting is prettier than his face would suggest,” Sothis comments. She’s perched atop Father’s desk, after having spent five minutes wandering around his room and touching (or, more accurately, phasing through) every interesting thing.

_Read with me._

“Hm? How inviting of you, for once,” Sothis says, clearly pleased at being invited. She trots over and plops herself on the arm of Byleth’s chair, peering over his shoulder.

_The child she traded her life for doesn’t make a sound. Didn’t even cry at birth…_

_…examine the child in secret. He said the pulse is normal, but there's no heartbeat…_

_I used to think the world of Lady Rhea. Now I’m terrified of her._

“Y’know, I’m kinda thinking this is a bit much to spring on you after that near-death experience of yours,” Father sighs, setting his glass back down on the table with a _clank,_ “but I figured it was about time I told you about this, anyway.”

“What… What happened?” Byleth asks. He sets the journal down, and only then does he realize his hands are shaking—he rests them on his lap, lets them tighten into fists until his nails dig deep into his palms and the pain steadies his too-fast thoughts.

Father frowns. “Until now, I still don’t know everything. But I knew enough to decide for myself that the monastery wouldn’t have been a safe place for you.”

Byleth swallows, looks back down at the weathered pages. _Lady Rhea said she died during childbirth,_ he reads, and immediately wishes he didn’t—the first time was enough. “Did Mother truly…?”

“That’s what I don’t know,” Father growls, running a hand through his unkempt hair. It’s grown longer during their stay at the monastery, and for a fleeting moment Byleth recalls a slow day during class, Linhardt daring Caspar to tug on Father’s braid when his back is turned. “Lady Rhea—she sent me out on a mission to take care of some business, and I thought we’d make it back in time for the birth, because I _knew_ she was due, and yet—”

“You didn’t,” Byleth says. He isn’t accusatory, or angry, or anything. “You couldn’t.”

Father looks down at the table. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I couldn’t. When I got back, she was… Lady Rhea was holding her in her arms. And you were there. Silent. For a moment, I—” His breathing stutters for a short second. “I thought both of you were gone. You were so quiet.”

Beside him, Sothis is motionless, staring fixedly down at her hands.

“That’s why I left the monastery. I couldn’t trust Lady Rhea again, not after everything, and especially not with you.” Father gives him a look, as if assessing him. “But that Crest of yours… and the way you can use the Sword of the Creator… it makes you wonder, doesn’t it. The connection between you and that King of Liberation, and… what Lady Rhea might have to do with it.”

“You don’t trust her, then?” Byleth blurts out, leaning across the desk. If Edelgard is listening at the door, he supposes now would be the time for her to celebrate or something.

Father blinks. “Uh, no. Thought I made _that_ obvious. But—it’s hard to just stop caring about someone you used to think the world of, you know. I don’t trust her, but—I can’t bring myself to _hate_ her, I guess.” He looks away, scratching the back of his neck. “I accepted the job here because I figured we all needed cash. Hey, even the mercs are getting more job offers just hanging around the Knights of Seiros, with all the news they get. But that definitely doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up my life to Lady Rhea again.”

“Again?” Byleth echoes.

“I was hired to escort her, back when I served in Faerghus,” Father says, looking thoughtfully into the distance. “Took a blow intended for her and would’ve died if she hadn’t healed me. Goddess, that was forever ago. I’m thankful, of course, but… well, I got a Crest for her troubles. Almost had a heart attack when Hanneman used his analyzer on me and _that_ showed up.”

“The Crest of Seiros,” Byleth mumbles to himself. He always forgets Father bears a Crest, but then again, he’s never bothered to explain much about it aside from its uses in combat. Vaguely he remembers it’s also the Crest—well, _one_ of the Crests—Edelgard bears, albeit she has a minor one. “When you protected her, that was when you became a Knight?”

Father shrugs. “Eh, yeah, more or less.” He leans back in his seat, staring up at the ceiling and massaging his forehead. “Listen, I don’t know if this answered any of your questions. I don’t know what Lady Rhea is thinking, ever. I don’t know why you don’t have a heartbeat. I don’t know a damn thing about Tomas—Solon, whatever—or that Monica girl. But I _do_ know that I’m not letting anything or anyone touch you again.”

“Father—”

“I trusted Lady Rhea too much, back then,” he continues, gritting his teeth. “And now I let my guard down too much, let that—that _whoever_ get too close to you. I can’t… lose you. Not after everything.”

Byleth moves before he knows what he’s doing, reaching over to place a hand over Father’s clenched fists. “You won’t,” he says, as firmly as possible. “I promise. I won’t die. But you have to promise you won’t either.”

_If not me, then would Monica have tried to kill you? Would I have been able to save you? Would you have died?_

Father laughs shakily, staring down at Byleth’s hand. “What the hell kind of world makes a dad and his kid promise each other they won’t die…”

In the seconds of quiet that pass, Byleth lets his eyes fall closed. _The world this Church has molded,_ he hears Edelgard’s voice in his head. _The world this Church has hidden under a veil of lies and smiles._

“…What is that.”

“Mm? What?”

“ _That._ ” Father jabs a finger at—oh. “A ring? On _that_ finger?” He peers closer at it, and Byleth has to resist the urge to jerk his hand away. For some reason, he wants to keep it a secret from everyone else but himself and Linhardt, but he doesn’t quite know _what_ that reason is. “A prayer ring. Kid, you could have worn this on literally any other finger. You’ve got ten for a reason. Lots of choices.”

Byleth frowns, but judging by the look Father’s giving him, he wonders if he might be pouting. “Linhardt wears his here, so I just—”

“ _Who_ wears _what,_ now!”

“Linha—”

“You two brats have _matching rings?_ ”

“No,” Byleth argues, “his is a goddess ri—”

Father stands from his seat and starts pacing the length of his office. Byleth watches, feeling the distress practically radiating off of him in waves. “This is too fast. Too soon. Kid, I’m not ready for this.”

“Ready for wh—”

“You could at least have told me before exchanging rings! I meant to give you this!” He grabs a small box off one of his shelves, shoving it in Byleth’s face—Byleth tentatively plucks it out of Father’s hands and looks inside. A simple silver ring, with a violet inset gem.

“Exchanging rings…?” Byleth stares blankly up at Father. “I gave it as a gift for the Ethereal Moon, and he gave me one back. And he called them promise rings.” _His matches the color of his eyes,_ he thinks of adding, but decides against, even if he’s terribly proud of that fact. “Well, I can still give him this, if you really want to.”

A pause. And then, “Promise rings.”

“Yes.” Byleth carefully assesses Father. He seems to have calmed down, or at least stopped looking seconds away from exploding. “We promised each other we’d meet again someday, even if we might go separate ways.”

Father collapses back down on his chair and buries his face in his hands. “Next you’re gonna tell me you did that on the night of the ball in—what’s the worst place possible—oh, the Goddess Tower, and that’s what I saw you sneaking out for.”

“Ah…”

“Never mind. But look—I still want you to have the ring. Don’t give it to him yet, though.”

Byleth looks back down at the ring. It glimmers prettily up at him, and he wonders how it would look on Linhardt’s other hand. Definitely nice. Linhardt has nice hands. “Why not?”

Father sighs. “That’s the ring I gave your mother, when I asked for her hand in marriage. I always meant to let you have it, one of these days… I guess now’s the best time.”

 _Oh._ An engagement ring. Byleth runs his finger down the cool material. _Platinum,_ his mind supplies. He’s been spending more time at the blacksmith lately, running errands for his class to help them with repairing their weapons. “Are you sure?”

“Well, you see anyone else I’m going to be giving that to?”

When Byleth returns to his room, he curls up in bed and stares at the two rings side by side—one clear green gem, one glimmering violet. They look good together, he thinks. Sothis helps him find some string to thread through the ring and hang around his neck. “You’ll be careful with that, if I were you,” she says, peering at it curiously. “I’d hate for the string to break during battle. Something this small will undoubtedly be lost in an instant.”

Byleth tugs at the string, lets his hand brush the ring again. It’s cold against his skin, and he tucks it deep into his undershirt. “I won’t let it.”

 _I’ll protect it,_ he thinks of adding, but decides against—Sothis looks at him like she had heard his thoughts all the same.

“You’re up early.”

As expected, Byleth finds him in the library. Not as expected, it’s several hours earlier than Linhardt’s usual wake-up time on the weekends.

Linhardt looks sluggishly up from the book on his table, as if just moving his eyes takes an inordinate amount of effort, and seems to immediately regret it when he sees Byleth. “I… couldn’t sleep.”

“That’s a first.” Byleth walks over and takes a seat on the chair across Linhardt, feeling something stab at his chest when Linhardt looks back down at his book, pointedly ignoring his gaze. “Linhardt.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

For a moment, Linhardt is studiously silent, staring down at his book and looking for all the world like he hadn’t heard a thing—and this just hurts even _more,_ because Byleth doesn’t know what he’s done wrong this time. When he had been confined to the infirmary, he had caught glimpses of dark green hair and deep blue eyes as he drifted in and out of sleep—but Linhardt had never been there when he awoke, unlike the last time he had been severely injured by dark magic. (Honestly, it’s becoming a habit by this point. He should stop.)

Now he _knows_ Linhardt’s been avoiding him, because Byleth hasn’t been able to say so much as five words to him throughout the entire month. Linhardt’s perfectly nice and normal to the rest of their classmates (though _nice_ might not be the right word for his _normal)_ , but he leaves the room the instant Byleth steps inside, and. Well.

It certainly isn’t the best feeling. Socializing still doesn’t come easy to Byleth, and there are dozens of little nuances to it he probably doesn’t know about until now—but he’s sure he hasn’t said or done anything wrong to Linhardt. Has he?

“It isn’t your fault,” Linhardt murmurs, “if that’s what you were wondering.”

“Then—” Byleth swallows down the relief he can taste on his tongue. It’s too obvious, it’s almost embarrassing. “Then why…?”

Linhardt’s still looking away from him, picking idly at a loose thread on his uniform. Byleth vaguely notes he isn’t wearing the hat, then has to wave the thought away—it isn’t like it’s part of his uniform, so why would he anyway. (Still, Byleth wonders where he might have put it, if he had kept it instead of throwing it away.) “I couldn’t help you, again.”

“During—Monica, you mean? That wasn’t—”

“Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault,” Linhardt sighs. There’s no real fire in his voice, but there is something else, something heavier than anger—Byleth sifts through his mental catalog of emotions, and hears guilt buried in Linhardt’s words. “I didn’t notice a thing, when Monica was gone and Edelgard suddenly ran after the two of you. And those students, the ones who turned into demonic beasts—they were all dead. Did you know that?”

At Byleth’s nod, he lets out another sigh, this one shakier than before—he’s moved to tugging at the loose thread to gripping the fabric entirely, bunching it up in his trembling fists. “I had never spoken to them. I never even knew their names. Which House were they from? What weapons did they favor? What Crests did they bear? I shall never know, now.” He pauses, then finally, finally looks up at Byleth—there are no tears in his eyes, which Byleth is only too grateful for, but he looks fearful, haunted, as if hiding from a ghost. “I thought… When I saw the professor carrying you back, I thought… I would never be able to find out some things about you, either.”

“But—” Byleth bites down on his tongue—but what? _But I’m here now—_ well, _obviously,_ it isn’t as if that’s going to help much. _But you couldn’t have helped it—_ no, that’s a lie, because Byleth knows not noticing people missing from your group is one of the most elementary mistakes any soldier (or mercenary) can make. “But I don’t blame you,” he finally decides, reaching forward to rest a hand on Linhardt’s shaking one.

Something wrenches in his chest when Linhardt averts his gaze, pulling his hand down to his lap and leaving Byleth’s spurned one to hover awkwardly mid-air. “You promised you’d protect me,” he mumbles. “What do I do in return? Nothing, Byleth. When you needed a healer the most, I—”

The library doors slam open—Linhardt jolts out of his seat, and Byleth whirls around, Creator Sword already in hand before he realizes he’s pointing it at Edelgard, who looks more frazzled than he’s ever seen her before. “You two!” she exclaims, leaning on a nearby shelf to catch her breath. “The enemy… the knights found the enemy! Solon and Monica!”

Byleth, in the middle of sheathing the sword, brings it back out again. “Where?” He can feel it humming in excitement, nearly vibrating in his hand.

“They’ve hidden in a place called the Sealed Forest, not far from the monastery—but you have to hurry,” Edelgard says, already pulling away from the shelf to head back to the doors, swinging her axe over her shoulder. Linhardt winces as its blade sweeps close towards a book. “The professor went on ahead by himself!”

Byleth almost drops the sword in the middle of running towards her. “What?”

“He and a Golden Deer student were talking when they overheard a guard reporting to the Archbishop that they’d located the enemies,” Edelgard explains. They race through the corridors and down the stairs; Byleth mentally curses the monastery for being so big. “It seems they were trying to keep it a secret from us, most probably because they fear it is a trap—and though I feel much the same,” she adds, distaste coloring her voice, “I will run headlong into this trap if it means taking revenge on those people!”

There’s genuine fury in her voice, and Byleth gives her a sidelong glance—he hadn’t been expecting such emotion, especially considering she hadn’t been the one who almost died from a cursed dagger. Honestly, Byleth doesn’t even _care_ about Monica—he just wants to face Solon again, and hopefully drive the Creator Sword through his chest. “Thank you for telling us.”

 _Us—_ wait a minute. He turns around, but Linhardt isn’t following behind them. Edelgard does the same and winces. “Hopefully he’ll catch up,” she says. “Let’s hurry—I don’t know how long it’s been since the professor went out there.”

As promised, they reach the Sealed Forest within a few minutes of running—Ferdinand and Bernadetta’s horses work double to carry more people along—but the forest is worse than Byleth had expected. The foliage is too thick to see anything by, the trees crowded and their branches low-hanging, blocking out the already-clouded sun. There are obvious tracks along the ground, and at first Byleth thinks they shouldn’t be too hard to follow, until something rustles in the overgrowth.

 _A squirrel?_ Byleth wants to hope, although he’s already drawn the Creator Sword. More sounds—faint whispers—then, finally, an arrow that whizzes inches past his nose.

“Enemy soldiers!” Edelgard barks, swinging her axe at an arrow and snapping it in half mid-air. For some reason, all Byleth can think of is how she must have been watching Caspar to copy the exact same technique. “Everyone, clear a path! Don’t disturb the tracks!”

Whatever other orders she may have given are drowned out by the aforementioned enemy soldiers charging through the trees, but Byleth doesn’t care—they’d all heard the most important ones, after all. He breaks away from the group, flings his arm out towards an approaching soldier and—

_Wait, no—_

—casts a Mire spell, and it comes so naturally and fluidly that it feels like he’s been doing it all his life. The sludge flows out from his fingertips, sinking straight into the soldier’s skin, and—

_Oh, the screams…_

Byleth watches numbly as the soldier disintegrates into a puddle of matter before he calls the mire back. It leaps to hover above his palm, as if delighted, and then there’s another soldier coming his way— _the sword, I should use the sword, it’s easier,_ but his other arm is already moving to fling the mire towards the soldier’s face.

The hiss of cooking meat fills the air, and it takes Byleth a second to register the pain shooting up his arm. _Why? Why is it—_

He barrels through the rest of the soldiers, following the tracks as best as he can, but when he curves his fingers, miasma seeps out— _when have I been able to cast that_ —and drives itself down another man’s throat, into eyes and ears—

Byleth stumbles, slumps against a tree, closes his eyes before the world gets any hazier. When he opens them again, black tinges the edges of his vision—and energy thrums through his veins, his blood, his very _being._ Has his magic always been this strong? Has casting dark magic ever been this painful?

Has it ever been this _exhilarating?_

A shout—he looks up, blinks blearily around him. The trees and bushes and people are all blurring together until they’re colors indistinguishable from others, but Byleth moves forward anyway, following the sound until he finds a clearing. Steel ringing against steel—the gallop of horse hooves against the ground—Byleth blinks again, and his vision clears enough for him to see Father, along with another student, facing off against—

He stares. He’s never seen her before, and yet…

“You’re fools to be so brazen,” she cackles, and instantly Byleth knows this is Monica. Or what used to wear her skin. “You think you can have your revenge on me like this? I’ll kill the both of you too—and when I’m done, I’ll find your son and finish the job this time!”

The wound at his back, supposedly long healed, flares with pain—Byleth backs away, trying to breathe in air that isn’t tainted with the stink of miasma (is it coming from himself?), but his foot slips and steps on a twig, snapping it in half. For one slow second, the sounds of fighting in the clearing cease, and Monica—what was Monica—turns her head almost a full hundred and eighty degrees to meet his gaze.

If Byleth concentrates, he can feel the dark magic radiating off of Athame in waves.

“ _There you are!_ ” Monica shrieks in glee, moving towards him so fast that Byleth instantly knows there’s no chance of dodging the knife aimed straight for his neck—he raises the Creator Sword instead, glad his arm responds in time for once, and the two blades _clang_ heavily against each other. Byleth pushes her back with a grunt—her weight and overall strength isn’t much, as far as he can tell, but—

She strikes again, too fast for his aching eyes to follow, but the Creator Sword elongates itself without needing his command and just barely blocks the attack. “You just won’t _die,_ ” she says—another move, another block, another hiss of the wind, as if her knife cuts through the air itself—

When he lifts his other arm, mire jumps at his call. It dissolves his worn glove entirely and wraps around Monica’s wrist, pulling the knife away from his chest. “Oh,” she breathes, and is that _awe_ in her voice, “oh _my—_ ”

Byleth sees the gleam of steel behind her, hears metal singing through the air—he jerks away from her, just in time for Father’s lance to rip through her shoulder, plunging all the way in, the tip of the spearhead protruding from the other side. Monica _screeches,_ pulling away from Byleth and tearing deeper into the forest, the lance still buried in her shoulder and her blood spattering onto the soil. “Byleth!” Father shouts, retrieving a shorter spear from his belt and swinging onto his horse. “Take care of the rest of the soldiers—I’ll finish this!”

Something stirs in his gut. The way Monica had run, choosing a direction immediately, almost decisively—“Wait,” Byleth calls, “Father, wait—” but more of that stabbing pain runs through his arm, as if the mire he had cast himself is turning against him, and he lurches against a tree, clutching his arm and feeling something pulse beneath his skin.

 _Not a heartbeat._ So it must be—

“Hey! You alright?” someone asks. Byleth opens his eyes, unaware of when he had squeezed them shut, and looks up into the worried face of the student Father had been with. Under normal, non-battlefield and pain-addled related circumstances, he thinks he would remember her name, because her face is familiar, but right now all he can think about is running after Father. “Holy—whoa, uh, you look awful. Come on, get on my horse—”

“No,” he manages, bracing an arm on the tree he’s leaning on. Something seems to crack under his touch, and both he and the student look back at the tree—rot spreads across the bark beneath his hand, and Byleth pulls his arm back in alarm. “I… I have to get to…”

“I’ll go help out Professor Jeralt—seriously, you look _terrible,_ you need to get out of here—”

Byleth moves to push her away, but retracts his hand at the last moment and elbows her instead, none too gently—she stumbles back with an affronted yelp. “Go back and help the rest,” he says, and, after a moment’s thought, “sorry—and thank you, for helping Father.”

He takes off without looking back, but makes himself a promise to offer her a better apology the next time they meet.

The world blurs with every step, fading into a mishmash of faded streaks of color, as if they are running across a canvas—Byleth pushes his way through what feel like a tangle of branches, and then a prickly, thorny bush, and then a muddy swamp that swallows his legs up to his knees. Everything _spins,_ and bile bubbles dangerously up at the back of his throat, and something in his chest won’t stop beating, pulsing, as if _breathing,_ and Byleth knows it isn’t him, but rather… but rather…

The smell of sulfur attacks his senses, and Byleth nearly recoils—instead he turns and follows the stench as best as he can, blinking rapidly to clear his vision once the muddy green-brown colors shift to darkness. He sees the flames first, maliciously violet, where the sulfur must be coming from—then Monica, with her vibrant orange hair—

Then Solon, with his arm thrusting out of her bloodied chest, something small and red and _beating_ in his claw-like hand.

Byleth sweeps his muddled gaze across the ruins of the forest, and makes a very small sound when all he can see of Father is the tip of his sandy hair, the rest obscured by the dark flames coming from Monica and the pillars in the ruins. He runs forward, extends his arm, channels every single bit of dark magic inside him and orders, _Obey me—_

The flames stop, shiver. Something rattles in Byleth’s chest. Maybe his heart—but it doesn’t feel like a heartbeat.

And then—

A scream, tortured and terrified, rips through the air—Byleth belatedly realizes it must have come from him, and he tries to scream again, but something else pours out of his throat. _Oh,_ he thinks, _it feels like powder,_ and then miasma rushes out to spill into the air, thick and cloudy and really, he’s only thinking about how it doesn’t taste very good at all, and—he screams, _screams—_ hears his name, _ah, Father? That must be Father,_ but when he opens his eyes his vision has gone shockingly clear, every angle sharp, every trickle of faded sunlight bright as a blazing fire.

Power sings in his bones. The melody dances through his arms and legs and chest, and when he moves, the world seems to crumble beneath the weight of his strength. _It hurts,_ a little voice in him cries. _It’s painful._

 _No,_ the rest of him croons, _it’s exhilarating._

“What—What happened? What have you done, you fucking—”

“So he tried to take control of the Forbidden Spell of Zahras,” a voice purrs. Byleth feels his entire body _(ah, but can he even use that word, when a mere body can’t hope to encompass every single part of him right now—)_ light up in fury, in rage, and he whirls around to face the source of the voice. A lined, wrinkled face—blackened sclerae— _him,_ Byleth thinks, stepping forward, feeling the earth beg for mercy under his feet, _I must kill him—_

 _No,_ the voices chant once more, and he pauses mid-step, _a comrade… he is our ally… a fellow dark user._

“Byleth!” someone calls—something about this voice makes him stiffen, and he turns around before he’s even decided if he wants to know who it is. Byleth stares through the dark flames wreathed around him, and makes out a pair of deep blue eyes, and a beam of light reflecting off a ring around slim fingers. _It’s red. Has it always been red? No, shouldn’t it be…_ “B—Byleth? What—You _are_ him… aren’t you?”

“Hevring!” Father— _ah, Father, I was going to help him—oh, but why…?_ “Get the hell away from here! Go, now!”

“No! Professor, this is—” Fear in those eyes— _but why is he afraid…? I know him, he is not afraid of me…_ “This is Byleth! I… I can’t leave!”

“Kid, you don’t understand—”

“Oh, but _you_ do not understand either, do you?” That voice again—Byleth hisses, moves closer, but again the voices whisper for him to stop. “Dark magic is magic beyond human control. The more one practices it, the more their body succumbs to the darkness… and eventually, if they try to take on a spell far too much for them to contain… well, what do you believe happened to me? To Kronya? To our dear… ah, what is it they call you… to the _Ashen Demon?_ ”

The scrape of a lance. “You lie.”

“Trust me, Blade Breaker. To have a new comrade in arms is hardly something I would lie about. Am I not right? Ashen Demon.”

 _Say yes,_ the voices hiss. And somehow, Byleth thinks they must be right—so he opens his mouth, and gurgles the approximate definition of a _yes._ Something wet slides down his chin, and he wipes at the dripping mire with his wrist—slow, languorous, mindless. Solon chortles, the sound like crackling fire, and the voices howl along with him.

“This… This isn’t right.” Distress— _but who is speaking, again? I cannot remember…_ “You… That knife. There was something in it, wasn’t there? Answer me, you piece of—!”

“Now, now. No need to be so crass. You’re right, after all—Kronya’s beloved Athame is imbued with dark magic, difficult to detect once it has mixed with the rest of the magic in any dark practitioner’s blood. It is this little bit of darkness that amplifies one’s strength and casting, making the use of the dark irresistible… and much easier to control. Let me show you.” Solon lifts his arm, the veins pulsing with black— _oh! Do mine look like those, too?—_ and crooks his finger.

Everything dims.

Byleth turns around. _Deep blue eyes. Full of fear. Ah… I like fear._

“Kill him.”

“ _No!_ ” someone yells—“No, Byleth, don’t— _Linhardt,_ get _out_ of here, _now—_ ”

Byleth lifts an arm. Mire trickles out from beneath his nails _(have they always been that long?)_ and lands on the soil, turning the brown into a rotting black. _Blue eyes—_ he steps closer, closer, drinks in the fear emanating from his target. _(Target? But I would never…)_

“Let this be an example of our strength,” Solon— _a comrade, an ally, yes—_ is saying. “Well, Demon? Go ahead. Kill him. Savor the act—you will come to love it.”

“Byleth…?” some tremulous voice whispers. Byleth tilts his head towards the sound, stares into those blue eyes and thinks _ah, like the ocean._ “You’re not… You won’t…”

 _Kill him,_ the voices cheer. Byleth hums—what is he doing, wasting time standing around here? He extends his arm. The mire dangles languidly from his fingers—

_(No, no, I shouldn’t be hurting him, I promised I’d—I’d…_

_What had I promised, again?)_

—arcs through the air. His target drops to the ground, hands shaking as something sparks before his palms, like magic, but it sputters and winks out before Byleth can even tell what he had been trying to cast. _(Wind? Had it been wind magic…?)_ The mire sinks into the ground instead, and the grass shrivels and dries up in the second it takes him to blink. “Byleth!” his target yells— _how does he know my name—_ “Don’t do this! Please—”

 _Kill,_ he hears, _don’t think, only kill,_ and Byleth thinks it might be Solon’s voice, and Solon knows best, doesn’t he? They’re partners, teammates—so he makes to move his arm again, before realizing he only needs to twitch his finger for the mire to shoot up from the soil and race towards his target again.

Again he sees it, a spark of magic that dies before it can form into anything threatening—the hesitation in those trembling hands and eyes that flutter closed, as if in acceptance—

Then his vision brightens, like the sun’s come out from behind the clouds—and a fierce stab of _pain_ in his torso. Byleth growls, and the mire wavers before splattering harmlessly on the grass again.

Behind him, Solon howls in agony, and Byleth whirls around to stare at someone— _no,_ not _someone,_ that’s _Father_ pulling his spear out of Solon’s stomach and then aiming for his face. Solon flings his arms out, miasma wrapping around the spearhead and jerking it away from his eye; Father stumbles back, and then he’s turning to Byleth—no, to someone behind Byleth, shouting, “Now! Get out!”

 _Who…?_ He turns back around, and—deep blue eyes, those shaking hands, that flashing ring— _oh, Linhardt._ Had he forgotten? How could he ever forget Linhardt, of all people? He opens his mouth, and tries to say his name—

And chokes on something thick and heavy in the back of his throat, as if some live animal is trying to claw its way out—Byleth bends over, coughing and hacking until mire spills out of his mouth, spreading through the grass like the roots of a tree and blackening the earth. His throat _burns,_ pain crawling throughout his body—but can he even be called a _body_ anymore, when it feels more like a mere _vessel_ for the magic, the _power_ raging within him, demanding to be released—

Warmth—Byleth stares down at the long fingers splayed out across his chest, and suddenly nothing is quite as fascinating as the way he can feel Linhardt’s heartbeat through the touch. “Stay still,” Linhardt whispers, and his hand glows with faith magic.

It _sears_ right through him, and Byleth _screeches,_ more sludge dribbling out of his mouth—Linhardt swears, “No, don’t, it’s alright, I’m sorry, stay still,” but every touch of his fingers burns against Byleth’s skin. _That touch,_ he thinks, thoughts hazy, _it’s nice, it’s warm, it feels like sunlight, I should trust it,_ yet when he looks down at his skin, the veins purplish-black, all he sees is a bright red burn on his chest in the vague shape of a slender hand. Blue eyes— _what was it? What was his name—_ stare at it, too, wide in shock. “Byleth, I—I’m sorry, I don’t—”

He sees that hand, coming closer, thinks _pain,_ again, and—

Darkness tinges the edges of his vision. Byleth realizes, a second later, that it’s the muck and mud rising around them, dark brown shifting into black as mire races throughout the earth. _Don’t touch me,_ he tries to say, and it comes out as a gargled mess of words as sticky and slimy as the sludge that clogs up his throat. “No,” blue-eyes says— _what was his name,_ Byleth could have sworn he would never forget it—“no, please, please let me help you—”

He comes closer, and Byleth calls, _Protect me—_ the mire hisses as it zeroes in on those wide blue eyes and descends from the skies, _like falling trees,_ Byleth thinks—he closes his eyes as he revels in the power flowing all around him—

Air trembles on its way down his throat. Heat erupts in his chest like an exploding star, streaming all along his body, fire in his veins and ice in his heart—and then it’s gone, the sludge dropping back down to the soil, sluicing his arms and face. It should hurt, should eat away at his skin and dissolve him into little but a puddle of internal organs, but it just feels like the tickle of flower petals in the greenhouse.

 _The greenhouse? What greenhouse—_ no, the monastery greenhouse, of course. What other greenhouse is there? He doesn’t just forget—

Byleth’s eyes fly open. Linhardt— _Linhardt, Linhardt, that’s his name, had I forgotten? How could I have possibly—_ is still kneeling in front of him, hands over his chest, palms open and singed by magic—and the Crest of Cethleann glimmers behind his arms, right where his heart is.

Byleth thinks this might be the first time he’s seen it, so clear and vivid, and he follows the curling, curving lines like he might follow the lines of a map, or the arteries of a heart.

Then it fades into nothing, as if it were never there, and Linhardt falls to the ground, skin graying by the second. There’s still mire circling the soil, waiting for his next command.

_Next… command?_

It had fallen from the sky—

“Linhardt,” he croaks, reaching forward—Linhardt’s chest stutters with every rise and fall, his breaths labored and struggling, and his veins are twisting black, dark magic swimming inside him. “Linhardt,” Byleth says again, “Linhardt, _Linhardt,_ ” in some effort to never forget this name again, as if he _could_ forget the name—and yet, and _yet—_

His hand halts mid-air, mid-reach. Whenever he had called for mire, it had always conjured itself from thin air, like any other fire and thunder spell—but he can remember how he had cast it just then. No, had he _cast_ it at all? It had simply dripped out from beneath his nails, as if it were a part of him, as if he had _become_ it—

Byleth’s fingers tremble. It had come so close, to touching this pale skin, these blue eyes. _He_ had come so close.

“Byleth!” Father shouts—footfalls, and then Father dropping beside Linhardt, scooping his shaking body into his arms. “What are you—move, come on! Get the kid and get out of here, now!”

“No,” Byleth breathes—he scrambles backwards, coating his hands in mire that he barely feels against his skin. (Does that mean—what does it mean?) “No, I—I almost—Linhardt, he—”

Someone moves behind them, and Byleth leaps to his feet. Solon stands before them, head cocked to the side, his blood pooling beneath him from the wound in his stomach. “The reverse Nosferatu spell,” he says, as if taking note of an uncommon plant species in the area. “More faith magic would only have harmed you. But Nosferatu, in whatever essence, will always retain some darkness within it… so he used that to give you his energy, at the expense of his own.”

He smiles, the grin stretching his face obscenely wide. “It seems he forgot he would be taking in the dark magic inside you. Or he knew, and did not care. How sweet.”

Something flares to life in Byleth’s chest. He grabs the Creator Sword, feels it hum with power, and charges towards Solon— _he tried to control me, he tried to make me turn on Father and Linhardt, he tried to make me kill—_

But Solon only thrusts his arm forward, Monica’s still-beating heart in his hand, and the dark flames rise again, encircling Byleth. Someone screams his name, but he can’t tell if it’s Father, or Linhardt, or—

The darkness clouds his vision, and everything goes numb.

“You fool!” Sothis cries, though there’s little impact to the insult when she’s clinging to him for dear life, arms around his middle and face buried in his chest. “What were you thinking? You knew it was an enemy’s trap! You were already feeling sick _before_ you went after Father and that Monica girl! Why did you go anyway? You idiot, you buffoon, you—you—”

“You called him Father,” Byleth says, instead of anything else.

Sothis rips herself away from him with a scowl, the corners of her eyes distinctly red. “Shut your mouth. You… You boulder.”

“Boulder?”

“You are like a boulder, rolling down whatever hill it happens to be on. No—even boulders have more sense! I feel as if I must apologize to the entire earth now, for offending it by comparing it to the likes of you!”

Byleth scratches his cheek. “That’s a bit much.”

“ _A bit much?_ Look what’s happened! This… This darkness is terrifying,” she says, her voice shifting from indignant to tremulous within seconds. Sothis turns away from him to pace restlessly, her hair nearly dragging on the invisible floor beneath them. “This realm of darkness we are in is separate from the world from which you came. I mean that it would take a god to leave this place. In time, our hearts and minds will likely cease to be.”

“You mean…” Byleth stares down at his feet. There is light to see by, coming from the odd chair—no, the throne, _Sothis’_ throne, before them. How it exists even here, he does not know. “We will die.”

Sothis does not look at him when she speaks. “Are you prepared, for that?”

“No,” Byleth says, before she had even finished her question, surprising himself. He thinks he may not have cared to die, before—life had always felt like something of a chore, killing and killing day in and day out, watching the sunrise as he finishes up patrol around the mercenary camp and watching the sunset as they gather around to start setting up a new one. He thinks he may not have cared to die, whenever his classmates had gotten into trouble and he’d thrown himself into danger to get them out of it—he thinks he may not have cared to die, as long as Father and the others lived.

But he looks down at his hands, still gray at the fingertips but settling back into the skin he’d grown used to—he blinks, his vision startlingly clear after the blurred mess from earlier before he had absorbed the dark magic, and sees the lines on his palm, the ridges of his thumbs. Byleth thinks—no, _knows_ there are countless other things he’s still yet to see, for there are no two sunrises identical to one another, no two sunsets that share the same myriad of colors. He had promised Ferdinand tea over war strategies, some weeks ago. He needs to return the bow Ashe had lent him to practice archery with. He and Father are still tied in their fishing competition. He owes that student from a while ago a better apology.

And—

The ring on his left hand blinks, from verdant forest green to bright, dangerous red. Byleth stares down at it, absently running a finger over its grooves.

He thinks he may not have cared to die, before. But Linhardt is still in danger.

“I thought as much,” Sothis murmurs. “I too do not wish to die, in a place like this. And yet… there is no other choice.”

Something cold crawls into Byleth’s stomach. He shuffles through his vocabulary—it feels, maybe, like dread. “What choice?”

“In Father’s diary,” Sothis starts, shooting Byleth a look that clearly tells him not to interrupt, “it said you were a child that neither cried nor laughed. Showed not a single emotion whatsoever. I think I am the one to blame, for the repression of your feelings, even if I may still have been asleep. How else can I recall the memories you have had since you were young? I do not know how that Archbishop managed it, but somehow she must have let me exist within you.”

She turns back to return to her throne. “My name is Sothis. The Beginning. The Fell Star. By now you must be well aware of what that means.”

Light dances across her face, and for a moment Byleth sees someone else entirely: white flowers interwoven in smooth, flowing hair on either side of a serene face, her smile kind, white wings spread open behind her. Then he blinks, and the vision is gone, as abruptly as it had come. “The goddess,” he says. “The progenitor god of Fódlan.” At the back of his mind, he thinks he should be more reverent, more worshiping, somehow, but he can’t quite manage it. All he sees is Sothis, the girl who called him a boulder.

Sothis turns to glare at him for that, and Byleth winces. “Your personal name-caller? Is that really all I am to you!”

“Sorry,” Byleth says, as he’s done so many hundreds of times before; then, after a moment’s thought, “dear goddess.”

“Oh. That sounds terrible from you. Never do that again.” She sighs as she slumps on her throne, gaze fixed down at her hands. “Byleth. To escape from this darkness… I have to use my power. The power of a god. But as I have no body of my own, I will have to relinquish this strength to you, for us to join as one. And then… then I shall disappear.”

Byleth stares blankly up at her. On her throne, she seems so far away, all of a sudden, as distant and unreachable as the vague idea of a god. “No,” he says, again, barely aware of his own words, only trusting himself to say the right ones. “I won’t allow it.”

She laughs. Byleth’s surprised by how painful it is to hear. “I will not be gone from this world. My soul shall be joined with yours, after all, and you and I will never be apart. But… we will no longer have the chance to speak, with one another.”

That cold feeling, the niggling dread worming in his gut, swims up and expands into a freezing numb sensation. “Sothis—”

“Through you, Byleth,” she continues, voice on the cusp of breaking, “I was able to see and hear this world I must have helped create. I watched the sun rise and set with you. Even without a body—do you remember, the cats at the monastery, they seemed to see me somehow, didn’t they? And that night, at the ball, when I danced away until we went to the tower—” Sothis stops, her breathing shaky, then speaks again with a sadness Byleth has never wanted to hear from her. “I wanted to do it forever. I wanted a body of my own, to dance and sing and breathe and live with you as everyone else… I would not mind giving up the power of a god, if I could only exist once more.”

“Couldn’t you?” Byleth blurts out. The light flickers above them. “You do not have to leave. You could… could…”

Sothis rises from her throne, hair cascading behind her. “You know as well as I do that this is the only way we can leave this dreadful darkness. And you want to leave, do you not? You wish to return to the forest and save the little ones. I know your heart as though it were my own.”

“But…” _But I will miss you,_ Byleth thinks. _But I will have no one to speak to, whether alone in our room or out with others. I will have no one to plant flowers with, or fish with, or eat with. I will never see you trying to dance atop my bed anymore, or petting the monastery cats, or pulling Father’s hair…_

“But what, Byleth?” She smiles, and Byleth wishes it were a genuine one. “Come. You know I am the beginning. What shall you do?”

Her throne disappears in a flurry of golden lights, floating down to surround Byleth—it should be surprising, maybe, but when he looks at Sothis walking down towards him, he can only feel the stirrings of something welling up in him, an uncomfortable heat behind his eyes and a tingle in his nose. “Look at you,” Sothis says, and her voice rings throughout the darkness. “You’re about to cry, you silly thing.”

“You—” Byleth swallows. His voice sounds far too watery for his taste. Then he wonders why hiding that matters at all, and decides against biting back the overwhelming feeling gathering in his chest—wetness trickles out of his eyes, slides down his cheeks. “You are already crying, yourself.”

“Hush,” Sothis tells him, scrubbing at her eyes with one hand and stretching out the other to reach for him. Byleth mirrors her, feels warmth start from where their fingers touch and shivers as it spreads through his body, as comforting and familiar as a Heal spell. She closes her eyes, but Byleth keeps his open, if only because he knows this will be the last time he sees her again. He ignores the burning in his vision, looks at her and tries desperately to engrave everything in memory—the shape of her face, the color of her hair, the tears still insistently running down her cheeks.

 _I shall miss you, too,_ he hears her voice—she does not speak, if only because she has turned into light itself, suffusing his skin with some holy glow. _Please, I only ask… Please do not forget me, my dear friend._

When the light fades, there is nothing but darkness—and then _power,_ blindingly and breathtakingly strong, surges through his very being, tearing through the shadows like a blade from heaven. Byleth gasps, or tries to—he scrabbles for the Creator Sword, shifting his grip to accommodate for the new, glowing stone in the once-empty hole near the hilt, and listens to it cry with the strength it had once lost. _Home,_ it seems to be saying— _I am home._

He lifts the sword—it feels worlds lighter in his hands, everything finally slotted into place—and rips through the shadows.

“So the Fell Star consumes even the darkness itself…”

Byleth does not look at Solon first—he’s hardly worth the time. He sweeps his gaze across the ruins instead, does the fastest headcount of his life—Bernadetta crouched behind a rock, Caspar barreling through a wave of soldiers, Hubert and Edelgard back-to-back. Petra firing arrows atop Ferdinand’s galloping mount. Ashe darting through the enemy forces, just in time to intercept a man aiming straight for—

Byleth swallows. Straight for Father, fighting off soldiers, with Linhardt behind him on his horse’s back. Dorothea’s hands, sparking with faulty faith magic, tremble above his shaking form.

He turns to face Solon, now, and flicks his wrist. The Creator Sword extends, snake-like, ready to attack. “What did you see in the darkness of Zahras? This should be impossible. The only being that can withstand that realm is…”

“What is it?” Byleth prods, stepping forward, some sick sense of satisfaction rising in him when Solon takes a step back. “Are you too afraid, to say her name?”

Solon snarls, cracked lips curling back over rotting teeth. “Unless I dispose of you myself, I may never have the chance to send you back there. Do us all a favor and die!”

Byleth dodges the fog of miasma Solon casts with ease, but it swerves back around behind him while Solon calls on a banshee in front— _control it,_ Byleth thinks, _control it and turn it against him,_ and he’s already stretched his arm out before the memory of the darkness bursts behind his eyes and he flings himself out of the way of the dual spells instead. The dark magic collide, filling the area with thin purple gas.

It would have been easier to take control of it—but Byleth thinks about that darkness, the mire spilling from his throat, the fear in those eyes—

“Are you scared?” Solon asks, infuriatingly mocking. “Your first instinct was to control that dark magic, was it not? Only further proof that you are but a hair’s breadth away from turning into one of us… again.”

He thrusts his hands out, conjures that swirling vortex of shadows he had called upon back in Remire—Byleth leaps away from it, and the tree it hits groans as it topples over, overcome by black, flickering embers. “I am not one of you.”

“And yet, you were.” Solon tilts his head. Another Death spell begins to form around his arm. “Rather arrogant of you to try and take control of that magic, don’t you think. How did you like your brief transformation? You must have felt all that power.”

Byleth stiffens—because he _had_ felt it, can still remember how it had felt, like the earth itself were bending to his will. Even before that, his dark magic had come out dangerously lethal, mire burning through skin and bone in the same time it took him to blink, miasma he had previously been unable to cast practically begging to be poured out from his skin. Magic, _everywhere,_ inside him, taking over from the inside.

 _Doesn’t it resemble a sort of parasite?_ Linhardt had said, back then in the village, seeing the mire pulsing within a dead woman’s body.

“How was it, being so powerful?” Solon grins. A cut on his bottom lip opens, and black blood drips down his chin. “Intoxicating? Invigorating? _Exhilarating?_ ”

“Shut up.”

“You cannot deny you became one of us, when that happened. Not anyone can harness the power of the dark so well, nor can just anyone be a vessel for it.” Solon spreads his arms open, looking almost welcoming. “So why not accept it, Ashen Demon? Accept your fate. Be one who slithers in the dark. If you will inevitably become one of us anyway, then why delay your destiny?”

“You—” The rest of his words devolve into a low growl, so animalistic Byleth almost doesn’t recognize himself. Because Solon’s words, frustrating as they are, _make sense—_ if he had been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have tried to hurt Linhardt. He wouldn’t have forgotten the promise he had made to protect Linhardt forever. He wouldn’t have forgotten his name, or what Father’s voice sounds like. So why? How could he have forgotten? How could he have let the dark take over him like that, so quickly and so easily?

Had he even put up a fight? Byleth can’t remember. Had he accepted it, just like that, swayed by how the strength had made the magic inside him sing in delight?

Someone shouts in pain behind him, and Byleth whirls around without thinking. “Professor!” Dorothea cries, stumbling forward to cast a Fire spell at an axe-wielding soldier with one hand and a Heal spell with the other. Blood gushes out from a gash on—on—

“Father,” Byleth breathes; and then, louder, “ _Father,_ ” and his legs are moving before he knows what he’s doing, grip on the Creator Sword slackening—

Shadows wrap around his ankles, tripping him forward and dragging him back. The sword tumbles out of his grip, sinking fast into a puddle of mud. “Now, where do you think you’re going?” Solon asks—Byleth cranes his neck to look behind him, only getting a glance of the shadows Solon wields like whips in both arms before he’s being lifted into the air and swung face-first into a tree. “We were having a _conversation._ ”

“Shut—” Byleth spits out a mouthful of tree bark and thrusts his hands out—“ _up._ ”

Something else threatens to be released, something suspiciously sticky and slimy and skin-eating, but Byleth grits his teeth, focuses on the warmth of the sun, and a stream of fire bursts from his palms. It chases the shadows away; perhaps not as effectively as wind magic, he thinks, a little wistfully, but it will do.

Solon curses and lets the shadows fade, replacing them with another screeching banshee. This one Byleth doesn’t dodge in time—it wraps around him like a horde of snakes, pinning him to the grass and screaming in his ears. The Creator Sword is too far—he can’t move his wrists to cast anything—and Byleth can taste bitter miasma beginning to trickle into his mouth. “Struggle here and die,” Solon says, voice drowning out the banshee’s, “or become one of us and live. Considering your situation, I say the choice seems far from difficult.”

“What…” Byleth coughs, choking on the gas—it’s gathered up in his throat, thick and muddy and making his head spin and vision blur. When he spits it out, there’s already blood mixed with the liquid poison, though whether it’s normal red or dangerous black, Byleth doesn’t think he wants to know. “What a joke.”

Solon’s eyes narrow until only the sclerae, dark as night, are visible from Byleth’s viewpoint. “It must be tiring, keeping up such a confident facade when you are on the very verge of death.” Then, unexpectedly enough, he bends down, low and close enough to Byleth’s face that Byleth can trace every wrinkle, see every wart, count every strand of gray-white hair on his over-large head. “I’m offering you a _choice,_ Byleth,” he assures. Byleth almost vomits at the sound of his name in that nasally voice. “Wouldn’t you like to see what else you can do, once you have fully and completely mastered the power of the darkness? To be truly _one_ with dark magic, in so intimate a way that you will never have to know fear again?”

Keeping the banshee screeching must require some degree of focus, because the shadows have gone oddly quiet, and even their grip on his arms and legs seems to have loosened. _A ploy, to make him seem more trustworthy?_ Byleth wants to spit in his face, but instead he says, very slowly, “That is true.”

Solon stares. “What is?”

“I dislike fear,” Byleth tells him, honestly. “I do not like how it feels. To not be in control. To not know if you will live or die in the next second or the one after it. To feel fear on the battlefield is hardly, if ever, a good sign.” He remembers how fear had looked on Linhardt, in his eyes blue as the ocean deep, the horror in his gaze mixing with terror and trepidation—and, buried under everything else, desperate hope.

“Yes,” Solon whispers, eyes growing wide. “Yes, you understand. You feel the same.”

The shadows shift. Byleth twitches a finger, and there’s hardly any resistance. He thinks about how the energy running through his veins is from Linhardt’s Nosferatu spell, from Sothis’ godly powers. Linhardt, with dark magic he’s never harnessed before, now eating away at him from the inside—Sothis, her consciousness now gone from the world and her soul living through his.

“So that is why—”

Byleth rips his hand free, calls on a crack of thunder that hits Solon’s throat, point-blank—the screams that tear their way out of him are terrifying, like the distorted, broken roar of a dragon from the mouth of a rat. He stumbles backwards, but Byleth follows, drawing a knife from inside his coat and sinking it into Solon’s smoking neck. Black blood sprays out. Solon gurgles incoherently, and Byleth sinks the blade in to the hilt—gore splatters over his uniform and face, dripping down onto the grass.

“That is why I do not wish for anyone else to feel it,” he finishes, voice low. He pulls the knife out of Solon’s throat and watches as his body crumples to the ground.

Byleth thinks he should feel something, after as brutal a killing as that. He has never quite killed anyone like this, after all, even as a mercenary. Perhaps he should feel guilt, or disgust at himself, or a little ashamed. Those all feel like appropriate emotions for the situation.

Instead, he only really feels relief.

He retrieves the Creator Sword from where it had half-sunk into the mud, not bothering to wipe the muck off of its blade (he hopes it doesn’t take offense for that), then immediately has to sit down before his head can ache any worse. Around him, the battle seems to have stopped—there are bodies lying all around him, and he doesn’t want to look and see if there are any he recognizes. Byleth stares up at the leaves of the tree he’s slumped against instead, watching as faint sunlight sifts through the dancing gaps. _Linhardt,_ he thinks. _Linhardt would like this._

Linhardt—

Byleth jolts to his feet, doing his best to ignore how the world seems to jump with him. _Father._ Father had been hurt. There was an axe, and Dorothea shouting, and—

He stumbles blindly across the ruins until he realizes his vision is blurring far too much for him to see anything or anyone—luckily someone catches his arm before he can fall flat on his face, their grip reassuringly warm and firm. “Byleth?” That voice—Ferdinand, Byleth knows. “You—what happened to your hair—oh, you look terrible! Come—Come here, the professor will undoubtedly want to see you—”

Ferdinand (presumably—it’s not like Byleth can tell) guides him over to Father, for once thankfully not chattering a mile a minute; Byleth doesn’t think he’d be able to keep up with that this time. Frankly, he doesn’t think he can keep up with _anything_ right now. It’s when Ferdinand falls to a stop that Byleth looks up, meets pained brown eyes, and… “Father,” he says, hoarsely.

Father says nothing, only engulfs him in the tightest hug Byleth has ever experienced. They both grunt in pain, but his injuries are suddenly the farthest things from Byleth’s mind right now—he lifts shaking arms up to wrap around Father’s back as well, clinging to him and his warmth, so far away from the darkness in that realm. “I don’t know what the hell happened to you and your hair, kid,” Father mumbles, slightly muffled, “but I’m just damn glad you’re alive. Even if you look like a salad.”

Byleth buries his face in Father’s shoulder. “Me too,” he whispers, surprised at how tremulous his voice comes out. He’s never heard himself sound quite so scared before, and he thinks he should be embarrassed by this, but right now that sounds like the smallest thing to worry about. “I’m happy… you’re okay.”

“Heh. No comment on the salad part? You’re fine with that?”

Byleth pulls away slightly to look at him. “What… do you mean?” He reaches up to touch his hair—

And stares at the mint green strands between his fingers.

“What, you mean you didn’t notice?” Father lets out a short, tired laugh, pulling away to rest against a tree. “You came out of mid-air looking like that.” Then his expression hardens, and he turns around to look out across the field. “But tell me about what happened later. Right now I need—hey! Vestra, over here!”

Hubert comes immediately, as if used to following orders—and, well. He probably is. Edelgard follows right beside him, her axe dripping blood all over the grass. “What is it, Profes—oh,” he says, giving Byleth a curious look, “it seems you live yet. Congratulations, I suppose.”

“You could try to sound a little less disappointed,” Byleth tells him.

“But then I wouldn’t be myself, would I?”

Father massages his forehead. “Could you take a look at Byleth here? All that dark magic from a while ago…”

“Certainly.” Hubert crouches down to press a finger to Byleth’s wrist—Byleth idly wonders what he can feel, considering he’s wearing thick gloves—then draws back. “Quite a bit of dark magic still left in you,” he remarks, not a shred of emotion on his face. “I wouldn’t be surprised if these people—or any experienced dark mage, for that matter—succeeded in using it to control you again.”

“Vestra,” Father sighs.

“What? It is the truth.”

Byleth looks down at himself. _Still a lot of dark magic…_ it’s most probably his own inside him, considering his veins aren’t graying like they usually do whenever he’s feeling the side-effects of an overload of the dark. And yet, even after Sothis’ power, and Linhardt’s spell…

“Hey! Professor!” someone calls—Byleth struggles to see who had spoken, and finds the vaguely familiar student from earlier. _Oh, her—I still owe her a proper apology, don’t I…_ “I can’t wake Linhardt up—he’s gone unconscious, I think, but it’s like he’s having a nightmare or something—”

Father groans, looking seconds away from tugging his hair in frustration. “Now’s the time where I regret not asking for faith magic help. Goddess _damn_ it.”

“Perfect,” Hubert drawls, turning to look back at Byleth. “Go ahead and heal him. You _do_ know how to do that, don’t you? The faith magic will help balance out the dark in you. Besides, I am fairly certain you owe him a debt.”

“But—” Byleth swallows. The rest of his memories from when he had turned into some kind of—of magic-driven monster are murky, with only the feelings and emotions still clear, but the fear in Linhardt’s eyes, the way his voice had sounded as he’d pleaded for Byleth to come to his senses—they are vivid beyond belief, as if cursed by clarity Byleth had never asked for. He thinks about the dried mire beneath his nails, the traces of miasma clinging to his lungs. “But I might—I don’t—”

Edelgard’s brow furrows. “Byleth, you won’t—you aren’t that… that thing you had transformed into anymore. And you certainly aren’t being controlled by Solon now, are you? It’ll be fine. You won’t hurt him, and he needs your help.”

“No, I—” Byleth breathes in, breathes out, tries to see past the particles of miasma that swirl in the air before him. “I can’t. I’ll—I’ll hurt him, and—”

“Byleth—”

“Everything—Everything’s spinning,” Byleth manages, before he slumps forward and collapses onto an alarmed Edelgard, his chin hitting her shoulder. _Linhardt,_ he thinks, _I should help him… I should…_

And yet—Solon hadn’t been lying, had he, about Byleth turning into one of them, if only for a few minutes. It hadn’t been a lie when Byleth had called dark magic upon Linhardt and almost killed him, almost snuffed out the light in those eyes, either.

He closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out. His last thought before giving in to sleep is that Edelgard smells vaguely of saffron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't have a solid image of what monster byleth looks like, but [this whole thread](https://twitter.com/yeon_0131/status/1218163579909619713) is pretty great inspiration lol. i imagine he'd also look a bit like hegemon edelgard!
> 
> next chapter: some filler because we're overdue another overly emotional conversation between our dudes


	15. pegasus moon (1) — “now you’re the one avoiding me.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A knock on his door. The third time within the past few hours.
> 
> Byleth rolls over and buries his face in the sheets. Normally Sothis would nag at him to get up and unlock the door, or do it herself with what little physical influence she had if he was feeling too tired or nursing an injury. Normally she would complain about having to exert so much effort, but Byleth knew she was always ecstatic every time she successfully unlocked the door.
> 
> He stares at the wall. She will never do that again. She will never blow out a candle again, knock over his textbooks again, pet the cats at the monastery again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[embrace for a dear old friend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2GvvPt7J64) _
> 
> thank you for the feedback as usual ❤ this chapter is like the cooldown period after the past few have been... intense... so get ready for a lot of dialogue

A knock on his door. The third time within the past few hours.

Byleth rolls over and buries his face in the sheets. Normally Sothis would nag at him to get up and unlock the door, or do it herself with what little physical influence she had if he was feeling too tired or nursing an injury. Normally she would complain about having to exert so much effort, but Byleth knew she was always ecstatic every time she successfully opened the door.

He stares at the wall. She will never do that again. She will never blow out a candle again, knock over his textbooks again, pet the cats at the monastery again.

“Byleth?” The voice outside comes through muffled. “I brought food. I’d leave it outside, but the dogs have been eyeing me for a while now, so I don’t think it’d be very safe.”

 _Then give it to them,_ Byleth tries to say, except when he opens his mouth all that comes out is a hoarse croak and a stab of pain in his throat. Annoyance flares up in him—he wants to scrape out every last drop of sludge still stuck inside him, wants to tear out his throat altogether so he never has to talk again—

He shuts that thought down before it can evolve. With incredible reluctance, he slides off the bed and opens the door.

Linhardt moves to take a step inside. Byleth immediately slams the door closed again and dives back into the blankets.

How had he not recognized his voice, even through the door? He thinks he’d know Linhardt’s voice anywhere, in sleep and in death, so how had the tiny fact that _he should not be anywhere near Linhardt_ not processed? Had Sothis brought along half his brainpower when she disappeared? Byleth wants to spit out a string of curses the way he’s heard Father do every time he drinks too much, but his sore throat prevents everything short of existing.

“What was _that?_ ” Linhardt asks from outside. “Are you really so averse to sweet buns? I refuse to walk all the way back to the dining hall, so you will simply have to settle for these.”

 _It’s not the sweet buns,_ Byleth thinks. He hadn’t even noticed those. _It’s you._

Then Linhardt sighs, audible even through the door, and his next words come out softer. “Fine,” he murmurs, followed by a _clink._ The plate, then. “I’ll have the professor ask someone else next time. You can come out in a minute and get your food, although I doubt there will be any left by then.”

Byleth waits for the footsteps to fade out of hearing distance, then hesitantly pushes the door open a crack. Linhardt’s right—there’s only a singular sweet bun left on the plate, almost a half-dozen stray dogs fleeing at his arrival. Byleth brings the plate in anyway, near-empty as it is, and sets it on his desk.

In the end, he leaves the sweet bun untouched.

Dorothea gets him vegetable stir-fry, which Byleth picks at before ultimately feeding to a nearby dog. Ashe brings over roasted pheasant, which is actually, surprisingly good. Petra refuses to leave the dish outside his room without seeing him come out, and when he finally opens the door, she greets him with a satisfied smile and a plate of grilled herring. “I was told by the professor not to leave until you came out,” she reports, then hands him the food. “It is good to see you again, Byleth!”

“It hasn’t been that long,” he says, staring down at the fish. Byleth’s not sure if his preference for fish is common knowledge among the rest of his classmates, but he’s glad she had noticed him gravitating towards it during meals.

Petra gives him an odd look. “You have not been to class in nearly a week.”

“O… Oh.”

“You understand you can talk to any of us about it, yes?” she asks, gently. “We may not know what you went through. But when you are suffering, I have heard it helps to speak with someone about it.”

Byleth looks down at the herring. He wants nothing more than for everything to be as it was before—to go to the dining hall and have meals with the Black Eagles there rather than hole up in his room, to attend class and pass notes about different kinds of meat with Caspar while Ferdinand watches disapprovingly in front of them, to see Linhardt again—

“Thank you, Petra,” he manages. Then he retreats back into his room, avoiding Petra’s dejected gaze, and locks the door.

Something scrabbles at his ankles, almost climbing up his leg, and Byleth jolts in shock—the herring slides off the plate and lands on his floor with a _splat._ Before Byleth can grab it back and adhere to Professor Manuela’s five-second rule, a black-and-white shape darts forward and snatches it up, leaving nary a stain on the floor.

Byleth stares. The cat stares blankly back up at him, then proceeds to nibble away at the fish without so much as a smidgen of compassion.

It must have slipped in when Byleth had left the door open for a while as he had been speaking with Petra—does his room really smell like food that much? He supposes he hasn’t aired it out in the past few days. Nor has he cleaned it. Nor has he… well… done anything at all, in fact. The days had blurred into mere minutes spent staring mindlessly at the wall, or ceiling, or whatever happened to be nearby.

“If you wanted some, you could have just asked,” Byleth says. The cat looks balefully up at him, meows, and returns to the fish. He sighs—he’s not sure what he had been expecting, and now his fish is well and truly unsalvageable.

He lets the cat have it, anyway, and doesn’t bother chasing it out when it curls up to sleep on the floor beside his bed.

“I lost someone. While I was in the darkness.”

Father looks up at that, in the middle of opening his second beer bottle. Byleth would really rather not have his room smell of unwashed laundry, leftover food, and now stale alcohol, but it had been a relief Father had decided to come here instead of make Byleth leave, so he’ll just have to deal with it. “Yeah? Who?”

“I never told you. But there was someone, living in my head.” Speaking isn’t as painful anymore, but Byleth still sounds lower and rougher than he’d already been, and his throat twinges if he raises his voice. “She had no physical body, but her consciousness was connected to mine.”

A pause. “That’s gonna take a while to sink in,” Father says, looking thoughtfully into the distance, “but I brought this stuff for a reason. Go on.” He takes a swig afterward, as if to emphasize his words.

Byleth sighs and stares down at his hands. “Her name was—is—it was Sothis.”

Several things happen at once: Father spits out a mouthful of beer. It splatters on Byleth’s wall and drips down onto the floor. The cat peeks out from its hiding spot beneath his bed and sprints towards the growing puddle. Byleth leaps off his bed with tremendous energy and grabs the cat around its middle before its tongue can touch the alcohol; unfortunately, this means Byleth, trained mercenary since the tender age of eight, loses his balance and lands face-first onto the aforementioned beer puddle.

“Her name was _what?_ ” Father says, apparently unmoved by everything that had just taken place.

Byleth groans and massages his chin. The cat in his arms mrowls and paws at his arms, and Byleth kicks the door open to place it on the ground outside, closing the door before it can sneak in again. He dearly hopes it doesn’t learn how to climb windows. “Sothis. The goddess of this land. The progenitor god. Whatever.”

“You’re telling me the _goddess_ is _living in your head._ ”

“Was,” Byleth corrects, turning away. He grabs a rag off the edge of his desk and starts halfheartedly wiping off the alcohol—this is not something he can sit around and let stink up his room. “She was.”

“Oh—” Father frowns. “What happened? You mentioned the darkness. Was that where Solon sent you to, when you disappeared for a minute?”

Had it really only been a minute or two? It had felt like a lifetime standing in that cold darkness, watching Sothis dissolve into light before him, for his sake. “Yes. If Sothis hadn’t been there… hadn’t relinquished her power to me and joined our souls together… I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”

“So that was what that madman was saying,” Father mutters, rubbing his forehead. “He said something about how you might not have been dead, but you were doomed to wander the darkness forever… or… something like that. Goddess, I wasn’t—” He pauses. “Sorry. Wait. Does that mean—are _you_ the progenitor god now, kid? Because there’s no way I’m gonna start praying to my own son. Damn, does that mean I’m not even allowed to curse in her name anymore? Or _your_ name?”

For the first time in a long week—no, a long month—Byleth feels a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “No. At least I don’t think so. I feel I am… simply a vessel for her power.” _The same way I had been a vessel for the dark magic._ “It must be why I can wield the Creator Sword. And why I bear the Crest of Flames. As for how we were connected…”

“Rhea,” Father instantly says, sitting up straight in his seat. Despite the bottle in hand, his eyes are as clear as ever. “When you were born—no, she—she couldn’t have _killed_ your mother for that. Could she? She must have implanted that Crest in you right before I arrived, because I never let you out of my sight after that…” He swears under his breath, setting the bottle down just to use both hands to tug at his hair. “She even asked me the other day—we’re going to the Holy Tomb, at the end of this month, for some _revelation_ or whatever that was—”

Byleth frowns. “Revelation?”

“You’ve been holed up here, so she called me to tell you instead,” Father grumbles. He grabs the bottle back to chug it down to half before speaking again. “The Holy Tomb is where the goddess supposedly sleeps. I guess they mean her physical body, rather than… I don’t want to think about the semantics of this. Anyway, there’s a legend Saint Seiros received some sort of divine revelation from the goddess down there, was told that it’s her duty to lead the people of Fódlan or whatever. So after Lady Rhea saw how you look like, she wants you to head down there and do the same thing.”

Byleth stares, perplexed. “Do the same thing? What, become a saint?”

“Hope not. Don’t think I’d be able to handle my kid being a saint. If they built a statue of you in the cathedral, I just might die laughing, and what a way to go.”

“Hm…” Byleth reaches up to tug at his hair again. He’s still not quite used to the… the _greenness_ of it all, and he’s a little disappointed it isn’t the same shade of green Sothis’ hair is. At least it hadn’t grown overly long, although if he keeps forgetting to cut his hair, it just might. “I don’t want to.”

Father gives him a look. “Be a saint? That makes two of us, then.”

“No—well, that too. But I mean, I don’t want to do what the Archbishop wants.” He tilts his head. “I have a bad feeling.”

Father sighs and leans back against the chair, staring up at the ceiling the same way Byleth’s been doing for the past week. “Yeah? Me too. She said we’re bringing the rest of the class with us down there too, and I’m not feeling totally optimistic about that either. Why bring a bunch of teenage noble brats down to the grave of the goddess? The Hevring boy’s more likely to loot the place than anything.”

“That—” Byleth swallows what he thinks would have been a pained laugh. “That does… sound like him.”

The silence lulls between them, interrupted only by a scratching at the door. Byleth sighs and lets the cat back in—now that the beer’s been cleaned up, he supposes there’s little reason to keep it outside. It darts back just to crawl beneath his bed once more, glaring at Byleth as if being deprived of alcohol poisoning is somehow his fault. Then Father clears his throat, finishes his bottle, and gives Byleth a pointed look. “You’ve been avoiding him.”

Byleth wishes he hadn’t said these near-exact words to Linhardt those days ago. “I’ve been avoiding everyone.”

“I’d agree, except for the part where you slammed the door on his face when I asked him to check up on you and he returned to me all sullen and sulky and asked someone else to do it next time.” Father shakes his head; when Byleth doesn’t speak, only stares fixedly at the floor, he adds, “You aren’t still guilty about what happened, are you?”

He briefly entertains saying _no, of course not, how could I feel guilty about nearly killing him?_ But Father would most likely smack him over the head and ask who taught him sarcasm, so Byleth goes with a blunt “Yes,” instead.

“Kid—”

“How could I not?” he cuts in, clenching his fists and feeling his nails dig half-moons into his palms; Byleth almost hopes he draws his own blood, if only to give himself something else to focus on instead of just the stabbing pain in his chest. “I almost… You saw what happened. You saw what I did. I… I turned into…”

Father stands up, or at least Byleth assumes he does, judging by the scrape of chair legs against the floor—then he lays a warm hand on Byleth’s shoulder, neither too heavy and overbearing nor too light and barely-there. “You’re here now,” he says, gentle and soft. “No one’s hurt. You’re gonna be fine, Byleth.”

“No one knows that,” he argues, weakly. “Hubert said it himself. They… One of them could control me again. And then I’d be a danger to all of you.”

In his mind’s eye, he can still see the people of Remire Village—their bodies dead, but the mire inside them still dictating their actions, pulsing beneath their skin in place of a heartbeat. Would he turn into one of those, a puppet for the next Solon to control again? Would he die without knowing, and let both his and Sothis’ body be used to stuff mire into the hearts of his friends, his father?

“Byleth. Listen to me.” Father drops to crouch in front of him sitting on the bed, moving his hands to rest atop Byleth’s. “You’re not wrong, alright? Someday, the enemy will return. Someday, they might try to take control of you again. But you’ve learned, haven’t you? I know there’s a way to break free from their control, even if there’s no convenient mastermind to stab in the gut with a lance. And most of all—”

He prods Byleth’s fingers until they unclench, the marks from his nails stark red against his skin. “Most of all, you’ve got people who’ll protect you. Who don’t want you hurt again. So you have to trust that, alright? You can’t push people away because you’re scared of what _could_ be.”

“I…” Byleth swallows, leans in to rest his forehead against Father’s shoulder. Strands of green hair enter his peripheral, and he wonders, for one moment, if he still looks like Mother. “I don’t… want to hurt anyone.”

Father wraps an arm around his back and sighs, breath tickling his ear. “I know, kid. I know.”

“Hey, Professor!” A bright grin. It takes Byleth a second to realize she’s the student who had been in the Sealed Forest with them. “We’ll be joining your class now! Okay? Okay!”

Father stares at them. Byleth does the same. Perhaps he’s hallucinating, after so many days stuck in his room. “Leonie—” _Oh, that’s her name, finally—_ “you usually _ask_ first, for this situation. And who’s this one?”

The other girl, who had been sulking behind Leonie and shooting Byleth scrutinizing looks, draws herself up to her full height. Unfortunately, this isn’t saying much. “I am Lysithea von Ordelia, from the Golden Deer House as well,” she declares. “I am more interested in reason and faith magic, so you may not have seen me in your seminars. But the ideals of the Black Eagles House align with my own, and so I have decided to join—”

She breaks off with an embarrassingly high squeak when Edelgard peers outside the Black Eagles classroom. “Professor? Will you still be—oh, hello, Lysithea,” she greets, her expression going from politely inquisitive to friendly and warm in under a second. Byleth can’t help but stare—he doesn’t think he’s seen her look this, well, _nice_ to someone before. “Were you speaking with our professor? I’ll leave you to it.”

Then she ducks back in the classroom, apparently having taken no notice of the flush on Lysithea’s face whatsoever.

Leonie laughs and smacks Lysithea on the back. “Yeah, her ideals _totally_ aligned.”

“L-Leonie! Ugh!”

“Uh, right,” Father says, exchanging looks with Byleth. “No problem, I guess. Try attending a few lectures and training sessions first and see how you like it. Like right now. Come on.”

The four of them go in together, which is probably a sight for the rest of the Eagles—Bernadetta almost tears the hat she’s knitting in half, Hubert blinks twice as if half-asleep then turns pointedly away, and Caspar drops his book on his foot. Ferdinand, for his part, waves at Byleth like nothing had happened; Byleth does his best to wave back, but his arm mostly hangs awkwardly in the air. Leonie and Lysithea take the two seats in front, Leonie deliberately pushing Lysithea to the one beside Edelgard—

Byleth pales when he realizes the only seat left is next to Linhardt.

Thankfully enough he’s asleep, face buried in his crossed arms, but Byleth’s sure Linhardt’s semi-aware of his surroundings even in his sleep. He considers turning around and running out of the classroom, but the questions that will undoubtedly follow will only be more trouble than they’re worth. So.

He slides carefully into the seat beside Linhardt, and heaves out a sigh of relief when he doesn’t stir. On his other side, Ashe shoots him a worried glance, but doesn’t comment. _This is fine,_ Byleth thinks to himself, retrieving the first textbook he sees in his bag and hoping it’s at least slightly connected to whatever lecture they’re having today. _All I have to do is sit very quietly…_

“Lin! Wake up!” Caspar hisses, just as Father starts talking. “It’s about magic and stuff! Haven’t you been waiting for this?”

Byleth briefly closes his eyes and wishes for peace.

When he opens them again, Linhardt’s staring right at him, not even bothering to be subtle—though he supposes Linhardt’s never been one for subtlety anyway. “Good morning,” Byleth manages, after several long seconds of silence between them. He tries not to wince—he thought his voice had been getting back to normal, but hearing it now somehow makes it sound like he’s as raspy as ever.

“You’re not wearing your glove,” Linhardt says, in place of greeting. He looks utterly bewildered, as if the world has fallen out of place from one missing glove.

“Oh. I… No. I’m not.” Byleth looks down at his hands, one bare and one clothed—after the mire he had cast had dissolved one of his gloves to nothing, its absence had been disorienting and sorely missed, but he had grown used to it. Or he had simply stopped noticing. He had stopped noticing a lot of things, throughout the week—he had only remembered to take a shower yesterday. “I… lost it. During the battle.”

“Don’t you have another pair?”

“I haven’t had the time to buy a new one.”

“Oh.” Linhardt tilts his head a little, as if fully aware of the lie, then shrugs. “Alright. Well, it’s a good thing you’re in class today. I personally requested the professor to discuss more on reason and faith magic, since he hasn’t covered much of that throughout the year. By the way, that’s a swordfighting textbook.”

Byleth clears his throat, ignoring the spike of pain. “Ah. Yes. It… It is.” He shoves the offending textbook back in his bag and digs around for the one on magic, comes up empty, and grabs a notebook he uses to doodle during class instead.

Linhardt sighs, propping his chin up on the edge of his palm. Despite having suggested the topic for discussion, he can’t look less interested in it than he does right now—he isn’t even facing Father, which Byleth just knows will irritate Father to no end. “Now you’re the one avoiding me,” he says, very softly.

Byleth almost drops the notebook. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you know very well—”

Linhardt cuts himself off when a small piece of paper, folded into a neat square, lands on his table. With an annoyed frown, Linhardt deftly unfolds it and lays it flat on the table for Byleth to read as well. In thin, cramped handwriting:

_Please have your very serious discussions another time, preferably outside class. Not only are you disturbing the rest of our concentration, you are almost certainly bothering Lady Edelgard._

Byleth turns around to look right at Hubert, sitting at the very back of the classroom as usual, and meets his menacing one-eyed glare. Linhardt rolls his eyes, gets his own pen, and scribbles, _Have you looked around you? Only the front row + Ferdinand are paying any real attention,_ then makes Petra pass it back. The moment Hubert opens the note, his gaze seems to darken by several degrees.

“Now,” Linhardt mutters, “as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted—”

The paper lands back on his desk. _Are you not the one who requested this discussion? At least pay some attention to our professor._

Linhardt grabs his pen again and irritably scrawls, _I’m surprised you bothered replying. Shouldn’t you be busy paying attention instead of passing notes? Shame on you,_ then hands it back to Petra, who just stares down at it and sighs, as if accepting this as another strange Fódlan custom she will simply have to get used to. Hubert unfolds the paper, and at the murderous glint in his eye, Byleth expects him to rip it up and burn the pieces, but instead he bends down to write a response.

The paper returns before Linhardt can even open his mouth. Fortunately—or unfortunately, Byleth can hardly tell—Hubert’s throw has it landing on Caspar’s table beside Linhardt’s, and Caspar perks up from his sleep. Linhardt stares incredulously at Caspar writing a reply, and Hubert looks beyond horrified.

Byleth considers telling all three of them to stop, but decides to stay silent instead. If it keeps Linhardt from talking to him, then he’s not about to complain. In fact, he’s half-tempted to add a thank-you to Hubert in the corner of the paper.

In the end, Father stalks over and makes Hubert throw the paper in the trash bin (which must have been the most humiliating five-second-walk of the man’s life); Byleth’s a little disappointed he hadn’t seen what Caspar had written, or what Hubert had responded with, or what Petra had said after she snatched the paper in mid-air and curiously read through the conversation in three different penmanships. And though Linhardt gives him a meaningful look again, he only says, “My room, later,” and leaves it at that.

Byleth turns to the side to hide his second relieved sigh of the day. On one hand, he’s glad Linhardt hadn’t suggested Byleth’s room; on the other, he wants to fling himself out of the classroom and live with the cats. He settles for halfheartedly listening to the lecture and idly staring at Linhardt’s hand from the corner of his eye.

There are still a few classes and seminars after that, and one archery session with Shamir. Afterwards, though, there’s nothing to keep him from following Linhardt to his room, judging by the pointed look Linhardt shoots him before he slips out of the training grounds, and that sends anxiety trailing down Byleth’s spine.

“What are you grimacing for?” Dorothea asks. She had asked for help in fixing the training bows, and Byleth had leapt at the chance to delay the visit, even if only for a few minutes.

Byleth absently tugs at a bowstring. Flimsy. “Linhardt invited me to his room.” Although _invited_ doesn’t sound like the right word— _commanded_ seems more appropriate.

“Oh!” Dorothea looks scandalized. “Well, shouldn’t… er, shouldn’t you be happy about that? You should go! I can handle this myself.”

“What? No, I am terrified.” Byleth takes the clipboard from a baffled Dorothea and notes down the weak training bow. “I don’t… know what to do. What to say.”

Dorothea coughs. “Just to be clear, what _exactly_ did he invite you to his room for? Because I can give you two different sets of advice, depending on your answer…”

“To…” Byleth stares down at the clipboard. All of a sudden the words are a muddled mess, and he nearly stumbles back from the sudden wave of fear—every little blur in his vision, every tiny thing that might mean he’s turning back—it scares him. Logically, he knows it’s a silly fear, because there’s no chance he’s going to turn back into _that_ unprovoked, and yet… and yet.

Dorothea blinks up at him, and only then does he remember she’s been waiting for an answer. “Sorry. I assume he wants to talk to me, about what happened. In the forest.”

“ _Ah._ Yes, of course.” Dorothea leans back against the wall, looking both relieved and disappointed at once. “Hmm. Well, talking about it will help. We didn’t want to push you to come out throughout the past week, but we were _worried,_ you know.”

Byleth picks at the corner of the clipboard. _Worried—_ he’s heard that before, from Dorothea as well. They had been at the dining hall with Petra, if he remembers correctly, and he had been on the way to Linhardt’s room as well. What a coincidence. Or maybe it just says a lot about what he regularly does. “Thank you,” he finally manages. “I’m… sorry. For worrying you.”

Dorothea snorts. “Forgiven. I’ll take over from here, Byleth, so go ahead and talk to him already, will you?” Her face softens as he gives her back the clipboard—or, more accurately, she takes the clipboard from his limp hands. “It won’t do you any good to keep putting it off.”

It makes sense when Dorothea says it like that, as most of the things she says—but when Byleth walks out of the training grounds, he spots Ferdinand trying to lead an angered horse to the stables and hurries to help—then Caspar asks if he’s got time to head to the blacksmith with him, and of course Byleth does—then Ashe calls him over to carry some fresh flowers to the storehouse and Byleth isn’t just going to _refuse._ By the time he’s standing in front of Linhardt’s door, sweaty and exhausted, the sky’s already starting to shift into sunset yellows and oranges.

Byleth leans against the wall first, mentally preparing himself—this isn’t a situation where he’s suddenly going to lose control and wreak havoc on the monastery, because there’s simply no reason for that to happen. So everything’s going to be fine. He just has to—

“You took your time.”

Byleth almost hits his head on the door. “Linhardt?” The name comes out choked, as if—as if— _no,_ this isn’t the time for thoughts like that.

From inside, Linhardt stares down at him, clearly unimpressed. “I’ve been waiting for _hours._ It’s already so late… you could have at least brought dinner with you, if you were planning to—”

“I’ll go,” Byleth interrupts, already turning on his heel. “Get dinner,” he clarifies, just to make sure, and then takes off towards the dining hall as fast as he can walk without looking like an idiot. He thinks he hears Linhardt call his name halfheartedly from behind, but Byleth can’t bring himself to turn around.

It’s still too early for dinner, but late enough that the staff have already begun setting the dishes—Byleth hurries to grab a plate, then has to double back and get another when he realizes how awkward sharing one plate would be—and catches sight of the onion gratin soup. It’s cold out, so maybe Linhardt would like something hot to warm up? Byleth returns the plates, getting a couple odd looks from the cooking staff, then grabs two bowls instead.

He very nearly returns the bowls to get plates again, because he’s starting to wonder if Linhardt would just like some saghert and cream after all, when someone calls, “Byleth?”

Byleth almost drops the bowls—only his trained reflexes keep them from smashing into pieces on the ground. He ends up looking a bit like one of the clowns he and the mercenaries had passed by in one village, juggling a bunch of balls and knives at once, but at least he doesn’t break anything. “Edelgard?”

“A little early for dinner, isn’t it?” she asks. She’s alone, for once, although Byleth thinks Hubert must be lurking in the shadows just out of sight. “Well, since you’re here, do you mind if we talk? It’ll only be a moment.”

“Oh. Alright.” The soup will get cold if Byleth gets some now—he sets the bowls on a nearby table and sits himself down, trying not to think about the smell of cooked fish coming from one of the chefs who had just entered. “What is it?”

Edelgard looks away for a second, looking suddenly uncomfortable; then, with a sigh, she slips her hand in her uniform pocket and retrieves what is unmistakably a dagger, its blade wrapped loosely in some old cloth. “Here. I wasn’t sure whether to give this to you or the professor, but… well, ultimately I think it suits you more.”

The cloth falls away at the pull of Byleth’s fingers, and he stares down at the black, crooked blade.

Even now, he can still feel the dark magic imbued within Athame, silent and waiting like a snake coiled in the grass.

“You would give this to me?” he asks, tone flat. “Is this supposed to mean something?”

Edelgard furrows her brow. “No. Not what you might be thinking, at least. I want you to have it because—well. Solon killed Kronya—Monica, that is—and you killed Solon. In a way, you won it. Besides, you like daggers, don’t you? You’ve always got one hidden away in your coat. So here’s one a step up from the rest.”

“This is the—” He swallows, inhales, exhales. “This is what almost killed me. This is what turned me into—into something I wasn’t. This is what almost killed…”

 _Pathetic,_ he thinks. _You can’t even say his name._

“All the better for you to have it.” Edelgard cocks her head as if in challenge. “Own it. Overcome it. How can you continue to improve if you refuse to face what once defeated you? It is our weaknesses that push us to grow strong. And I know you, of all people, would know that.”

She brushes past him after another nod, and Byleth catches a flicker of movement in the shadows. Hubert, then. But that isn’t his problem—he looks down at the dagger, at Athame, gleaming black in the light. He has half a thought to throw the thing away, or to toss it into the fires of the blacksmith and pretend it never existed—but.

Byleth remembers the pain. How could he not? It was the sort of pain that made itself known and refused to be forgotten. Maybe that means something. Maybe it doesn’t.

He rewraps the blade in the cloth and tucks it in his coat pocket, all the same. At the back of his mind, he realizes he’d never properly thanked Edelgard for carrying him back to the monastery when he’d lost consciousness in the forest.

“You know,” Linhardt starts, which is never a good sign, “I have spent more time looking at your back than your face, these past few days. Not exactly a good thing.”

“Sorry,” Byleth offers. He nudges the bowl of soup on the table closer; if Linhardt ignores it any longer, not only is the soup going to get cold, but Byleth is also going to jump out the window and run out of the monastery altogether. “What did you want to talk about?” For a man with a sore throat, he has been doing an awful lot of talking.

Linhardt looks as bored as ever. “I think you know.”

“Do I.”

“Look at this. We’re alone in my room. It’s nearly dark out. We’ve got no other place to be.” Linhardt gives him a look that suggests how absolutely ridiculous he’d be to _not_ know. “I’m surprised you don’t understand.”

Byleth lets the facts piece themselves together in his head to form… oh. Huh. He _should_ have expected this, from Linhardt. The realization that he doesn’t want to talk about the Sealed Forest sends relief coursing through his person. And yet… “You want to research, don’t you.”

Linhardt smiles. It is, quite possibly, the first time Byleth has seen it in over a month, and it feels like gazing upon warm sunlight. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Linhardt.” His name sounds strange in his voice, now, as if Byleth isn’t worthy of speaking it. “You can’t.”

The smile falls. “And why not?”

“Did you just conveniently forget everything that happened not two weeks ago?” Byleth asks, hating the way his voice cracks at the end of his words. “Even being this close to you is already… You can’t just expect me to…”

“Byleth.” Linhardt stands from his bed, stepping forward. He’s dressed down, in only the white blouse he wears beneath the academy uniform and a pair of loose trousers, the hems wide enough to look like a long skirt. Byleth fixates on this tiny detail, stares at a loose thread on the gold lining as if it can block out his voice. “I won’t— _you_ won’t hurt me.”

“You… You don’t know that—”

“Don’t you remember?” Linhardt asks, voice soft and low. “Back then, during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion? Something like this happened, too.”

_(“Any time, any place, I could just… hurt you.”_

_“Could you? I thought we established I won’t let you hurt me.”)_

“Oh,” Byleth breathes. “Yes. That… I remember.” _How could I forget?_ “It was… your Wind spell, with Claude, and…”

“Don’t invoke his name,” Linhardt sighs. Again he steps closer, closer, until he’s standing right in front of Byleth. Their height difference, however slight, is always made apparent when they’re this near each other, but more than that it reminds Byleth of the last time he had looked down at Linhardt, when he had towered over everyone else, when he had… had…

He backs away, retaining enough state of mind not to knock over the bowls of soup he had worked so hard for. Linhardt’s presence, something he had grown so used to, something he had welcomed, once—it just feels like a danger now, to the both of them. “Don’t come near,” Byleth whispers. “Please.”

Linhardt frowns, but stays in place. “Do you remember what you said to me? You’d protect me, even if it’s from myself. I want to do the same. I _did_ do the same, actually, so you’re welcome for that.”

“I hurt you.”

“Oh, did you.”

“That dark magic. When you absorbed it. I couldn’t—” Byleth forces himself to stop, to slow down and breathe for a few seconds, before speaking again. “Solon was right. That day, in Remire. He told me I would run wild with dark magic, and that I’d turn on all of you, and…”

Linhardt exhales harshly, looking both tired and frustrated. “I am fine now, if you weren’t aware. It took a while, but faith magic didn’t hurt me the way it had hurt you when I tried to cast Heal—I only needed a few days in the infirmary with Professor Manuela, as you can see. And you didn’t _hurt_ me—that was _me_ choosing to get hurt for you. Trust me, Byleth,” he says, voice dipping into something softer and so much unlike his usual passive tone, “there is a difference, however small you think it might be.”

“But—” Byleth sighs. He wants, badly, to look away from Linhardt’s blue eyes, so uncharacteristically earnest, but all he can think of is how Linhardt had looked, back then—his hands burnt by corrupted reason magic, shaking under Byleth’s Heal spell.

What did he do, back then? He had sought Linhardt out after Linhardt ran away, sat beside him and told him there was nothing to be afraid of, healed the wounds on his palms. His emotions had come through so clearly, back then, when Byleth had cast the spell—fear, he remembers. Guilt. But there had been another one, an emotion Byleth couldn’t find the word for—that surge of warmth, of something that felt like the smile of the sunbeams.

“What? Loss for words?” Linhardt teases.

“No,” Byleth mumbles, momentarily falling back into their usual banter, “my throat just… hurts.”

“Hmm, still.” Linhardt doesn’t step forward, but he does extend his arm, reaching until his fingers hover just short of Byleth’s throat. “I suppose you have sounded awful all day. Let me.” And, after a short pause and a glance at Byleth’s face, “It won’t hurt.”

“I know,” Byleth says. “It’s you, after all.”

There’s probably something wrong about that—hadn’t Linhardt’s faith magic hurt him, when he had turned into that… thing? But, then again, that hadn’t been himself at all. Byleth can’t bring himself to imagine a world where he could ever willingly, intentionally hurt Linhardt, no matter the context… _and,_ he thinks, _perhaps that’s what he realized too, when he had almost hurt me._

The Heal spell is as comforting as always, and Byleth lets it wash over him, reveling in the sensation he hasn’t been able to indulge in for so long—foreign feelings trickle in again, relief and concern mixed among them, and—

_That warmth._

“What is that?” Byleth blurts out. Linhardt looks up at him from his neck, obviously confused, and Byleth hurries to add, “The… whatever you’re feeling.”

Linhardt stares. “Er. What?”

“That feeling…” It’s already gone, quick as it had come, but Byleth’s sure he had felt it—that unnameable emotion, somehow familiar and completely alien at the same time. It feels like the light catching on a reflective surface and bouncing back up to the cathedral ceiling, or watering the plants in the greenhouse on a hot day and seeing their stems bob and sway towards the window, or… or having tea outside, lying on the grass, staring up at the sun. “It’s like sunlight, or…”

The Heal spell fades, and the memory of the emotion fades like a dream drifting away in the morning. Byleth frowns at Linhardt’s clear incomprehension. “Never mind. I’ve just never felt it before.”

“This mystery emotion that feels like sunlight?” Linhardt slowly repeats, turning back to retrieve his notes. There’s a drawing of some kind of hulking black creature on one of the pages—Byleth squints closer, but Linhardt shuffles the papers before he can see much more. “Well, I can’t possibly be special. Let me know if you feel it again from Dorothea or Professor Manuela. Hm, you become stranger and stranger everyday, Byleth.”

Byleth’s fairly sure he’s never going to feel this emotion from anyone _but_ Linhardt, considering he’s only felt it twice from him and no one else, but he lets the matter drop. “Can I go now?”

“Eager to get away from me so soon?”

“I…” Byleth suppresses a sigh. He can’t help but notice his voice sounds far more normal now, and his throat doesn’t complain every time he speaks. “Thank you. I… suppose I was being irrational.”

Linhardt smiles again, flipping through the papers. “Stay a while. I’d like to see what effects that transformation may have left on you. Maybe it has something to do with your new hair?”

“Oh. Right.” Byleth touches the green strands again. If anything, he’s at least glad it isn’t the same shade as Linhardt’s. He doesn’t think that would look very good on him. “I don’t think they’re at all connected, actually.”

“Really?” Linhardt sits back down at the edge of his bed, shuffling through his notes, and Byleth reflexively follows to settle on the floor beside him, on the spot where he had long taken the time to clear of books and papers. The positions and movements are all too familiar, and for the first time Byleth finds himself hoping this research session never ends.

“I merged my soul with the goddess’,” Byleth explains.

Linhardt drops his papers on his lap.

“And her hair is green, so it must have mixed with my blue. I think it might have to do with pigments or something,” Byleth adds, taking the silence as confusion. He’d overheard Dorothea and Bernadetta talking about whatever those were with another student from the Golden Deer House, and hadn’t quite been able to get the theory out of his head, though he doesn’t actually know what a pigment is.

“Ahem. Sorry. Could you repeat what you just said?”

“Pigme—”

“ _No,_ not that,” Linhardt sighs. “What happened with the goddess?”

“Oh.” Byleth tilts his head. Then, a little slowly, he repeats what he had told Father—how Sothis had lived in his head and slowly recovered her lost memories over time, how she had given him her strength for them to escape from the darkness Solon had trapped them in. “Thinking about it now,” he murmurs, “maybe she had used her power to make my hair this specific color. It’s such an awful shade of green, she probably wanted to play a prank on me one last time.”

Linhardt hums, brushing his fingers over the crown of Byleth’s head. Byleth leans back into the touch, staring up at Linhardt’s ceiling—what looks like a paper crane dangles off by a string, and he idly wonders when it had gotten there. Caspar’s handiwork, maybe? No, he’d rip the paper. Bernadetta, then? “What was she like?”

“What?”

“It isn’t everyday I hear about one of my friends having a goddess living in their head,” he remarks. “But I’m assuming you don’t know much about how she came to be there or anything, else you would have said so. So what was she like? You can tell me that much, can’t you?”

Byleth closes his eyes, exhales slowly. He hadn’t been able to tell Father about how Sothis was like. “She is… was… she acted like how I think a grandmother would act. Not at all like a goddess everyone reveres and worships… but that doesn’t matter. She liked the monastery cats. And… flowers. She liked it when I had greenhouse duty. She liked dancing, most of all, I think…”

He goes on, listing off as many details about her as he can remember—when she’d lay on his bed and take up all the space, when she’d grumble sarcastic responses to whoever was bothering her that day, when she’d keep him company on late nights doing homework Byleth had put off and nag him for not knowing the correct answer. “There are so many things about her,” he says, softly; Linhardt’s carding a hand through his hair, and the motion is making it hard to focus on what he’s saying. “I don’t… I don’t want my memories of her to die with me.”

“Since you’re the vessel for the goddess now, I don’t think you’ll ever die. If that makes you feel better.”

“Not really.”

Linhardt shrugs. “Worth a try. Well, how about this—I don’t think your hair looks _that_ awful. It’s certainly bright enough that you’ll stand out in the battlefield, for one thing.”

“Hmm…” Byleth tilts his head closer to Linhardt’s hand. “I don’t know if that’s such a good thing either… Won’t the enemy target me more?”

“I’ll just have to be fast enough to help you, then.”

_(I couldn’t help you, again…)_

Byleth turns around at that; Linhardt retracts his hand from his hair, and Byleth tries not to miss the contact too much. “You mean that?” he asks. Whispers, really. “You aren’t afraid of me?”

“Why would I be?” Linhardt sighs. “Whatever you transformed into wasn’t _you,_ Byleth. You were just being controlled by someone else. But you, yourself…” He pauses for a moment, then rests a hand on Byleth’s—Byleth hadn’t realized he had been shaking, and when he looks down, the two rings glimmer up at him, verdant green and ocean blue. “I will always want to help you,” Linhardt murmurs. “The only thing about you I am afraid of is that someday I will not be there again, and you will not be as lucky as last time.”

Byleth blinks. “Oh.”

“Is that… really all you have to say.”

“I… don’t really know _what_ to say.”

Linhardt shakes his head, but a faint hint of amusement dances across his features. “I should have expected that. Well—” He pulls away, stretching his arms above him—“it’s about time we did what you came here for. But a goddess living in your head has changed quite a few theories of mine, so could you please just answer some questions…”

“Really?”

“Come on. Would you rather leave me here to sulk and drink my soup alone?”

“You haven’t even drunk it,” Byleth points out. “It’s probably cold already.” So much for warming him up.

Linhardt rolls his eyes and leans across his bed to grab both the bowl and a nearby pen. “I will now. Oh, no need to look so tired already, we’ve only just begun—first, do you think the goddess’ consciousness inside you had any effect on your, say, personality? Or perhaps your attitude, your thoughts, your mindset? Anything helps.”

Byleth rests his cheek on Linhardt’s knee. “I was incapable of emotions.”

A pause. He looks up at Linhardt, sees the surprise on his face, and continues. “My memories are vague, but my father told me I neither laughed nor cried. Showed no emotion at all. Might have been why I made such a good mercenary—I could feel no guilt when I killed, after all.”

“Ah,” Linhardt says, very slowly. “I see. That does… make some sense. When you first arrived in the monastery—”

He cuts himself off at that, furiously scribbling something down on his notes, and Byleth tries to peer at the papers—Linhardt’s handwriting is as illegible as always, unfortunately, and he gives up on trying to decipher it. “What about when I first arrived?”

“Well. It’s… No, it’s nothing.”

Byleth frowns. Pouts? He thinks he’s starting to tell the difference. “I want to know.”

“Oh, very well… it’s just… there were rumors,” Linhardt says, resting a hand on Byleth’s head again, “about the Ashen Demon. The most popular one was about how you couldn’t feel emotions. Like you were simply born that way, and it was impossible for you to… to feel anything.” He looks away and swallows at this, as if the words are more personal than Byleth can tell. “So we were all curious, of course, to see if this was true. And many of us thought so at first—you almost never smiled.”

Byleth turns this new information over in his head. Something about it feels familiar, as if he’d heard about this before… but where? And when, and why, and from who? “Almost?”

“I’m proud to say I still remember when we spoke, in the library,” Linhardt says, his voice rising in what sounds like fondness. “I said something that made you smile, and you tried to hide it when I pointed it out. So I thought you just tended to mask your emotions, though I had no idea why. Then someone else theorized that you _can_ feel some emotions,” he continues, expression darkening, “but only up to a certain level. Threshold. Whatever. Urgh, it makes me sick just thinking about him.”

Byleth cocks his head. “Him?”

“It was Claude who suggested that,” Linhardt huffs. Then he seems to remember his original question, and his typical curiosity replaces the annoyance on his face. “Never mind him, though. You said you _were_ incapable of feeling emotions? What about now?”

But Byleth can’t bring himself to answer just yet— _Claude?_ Why would he care? The two of them weren’t close in any sense of the word back when he had first enrolled in the academy. Then again, Byleth knows Claude gathers information about everyone and anyone, so perhaps he’s not special. _So then, that time—_ “Was that what you were talking about?”

Linhardt blinks. “What?”

“During the Battle of the Eagle and Lion…” _What had he said?_ Byleth wishes, for the umpteenth time, that he had paid more attention to what they had been saying rather than just tracking their voices. “You and Claude had been talking about something. Until now I still don’t know what it was about, but—could it have been about this?”

Linhardt stares at him—for a moment he looks horrified, but Byleth wonders if he had just imagined it, because Linhardt’s expression smoothens into an inscrutable blank slate in the next blink. Yet Byleth’s sure he’s not imagining the way Linhardt’s grip on his pen tightens, or how he averts his gaze from Byleth when he speaks again.

“Yes,” he finally says, “it was.”

There’s an odd weight to his words, as if he’s revealed some terrible truth, but Byleth’s mostly just glad he finally has _some_ vague idea as to what that awful conversation had been about. “Okay,” Byleth says. “So that’s it. Why do you look like it’s something bad?”

Linhardt, now looking thoroughly confounded, snaps his gaze back to Byleth. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t mind that you were gossiping, if that’s what you’re worried abou—”

“Gossiping,” Linhardt repeats. Then, with slightly more inflection, “ _Gossiping._ ”

“Sharing rumors,” Byleth explains. “That… _is_ what you were doing. Right?”

Unexpectedly, Linhardt hides a laugh behind his hand, dropping his pen on his lap. “I… Yes. Yes, whatever. That is certainly one way of putting it. And, er, the thing is, Claude was pushing it a bit—and I was already quite irritated after he’d betrayed us, so there is that.”

“Hm…” Byleth reaches over to twirl Linhardt’s pen across his fingers. Byleth himself has only been using one pen throughout the year, which says a lot about how much he takes down notes during class, but Linhardt is always asking him or Caspar to head down to the market with him to restock on pens. “So that’s it. After three months…”

“Going back,” Linhardt prods, “you _can_ feel emotions now, can’t you?” At Byleth’s nod, he brightens and takes his pen back from Byleth, scrawling something across his notes. “I knew it. I’ve always known, really. I suppose the people you don’t talk to often, like those outside our class, wouldn’t know any better, but we _do_ know you. And it’s impossible you can’t feel emotions, after all the times I’ve seen you show it. Hmm, perhaps in your past, the goddess’ presence had something to do with how you couldn’t feel anything, though? She could be connected to the part of your brain that processes emotions… ah! She might even be related to the prophetic dreams you mentioned before…”

Byleth yawns and leans into Linhardt’s hand gently running his fingers through his hair again. The motion feels somewhat familiar, and Byleth thinks that might be because he’s seen Linhardt do this, just to his own hair rather than Byleth’s. He never thought it could feel quite so relaxing…

“Byleth, don’t fall asleep on me.” A pause. “Hm, coming from me, I suppose that’s a bit hypocritical…”

“Mmn.”

The hand in his hair abruptly stops. Byleth lifts his head with a frown. Pout. Yes, this one is definitely a pout. “If you’re going to fall asleep,” Linhardt tells him, “don’t do it while sitting on the floor and leaning on my leg. You’re going to give both of us cramps.”

He has a point, which is why Byleth grudgingly crawls up to join Linhardt on his bed. At Linhardt’s aghast look, he says, “What? This way we’re both comfortable, right?”

“Um,” Linhardt says, at length, “no. We’re not. Get off. Right now.”

“Why? We’ve slept together before, haven’t we?” It had been that night after the battle with Miklan, in the cramped inn room with Caspar on the other bed and chivalrous Ferdinand on the floor. Their sleeping together had been something of an accident, though; Byleth hadn’t been aware he’d fallen asleep until he’d, well, woken up. With a mouthful of Linhardt’s hair, too. Byleth still remembers swallowing enough to serve as his breakfast.

For some reason Linhardt flushes at the reminder, and he shoves Byleth off his bed. Only because Byleth lets him, really—Linhardt has zero actual arm strength, unless he’s carrying stacks of library books at a time. “That was—different, I was an idiot—anyway, just get off already, will you?”

Byleth feels his brow furrow in confusion but obediently slides back down to the floor. “Oh,” he realizes, “I didn’t think about that. Sorry.”

Linhardt inches away from him, busying himself with his notes and a small pile of books he’d left atop the bed. “Of course you didn’t. Whatever. It’s—”

“Your bed’s smaller than the one at the inn back then,” Byleth says. “You wouldn’t have as much space.”

Linhardt buries his face in his hands. “Right. Yes. Of course. Byleth, do you ever _think?_ ”

“That’s rude. Of course I do.”

“Right. Yes. Of course,” Linhardt repeats, mostly to himself. “If you’re sleepy, you can go. But you’ll owe me another research session one of these days.”

“Hm…” Byleth tilts his head and tries to hide his disappointment. He’d only really been feeling sleepy because of Linhardt hand-combing his hair, but pointing that out embarrasses him for some reason, so he settles for saying, “Okay. Goodnight, Linhardt,” instead and standing up to fetch the empty soup bowls.

Linhardt looks up at him once he’s at the doorway, cheeks still a little pink. “Goodnight. Get some sleep.”

Walking through the monastery grounds at night has never been new, for Byleth—sometimes he loses track of time and trains for too long, or he has an errand to run that he’s been putting off for too long already, or… well, he had dinner with Linhardt in his room and has to return the plates, like right now. And navigating in the dark is something Byleth is only too used to, anyway.

But—he doesn’t remember the last time he had been so _alone_ before.

Byleth returns the bowls. He heads back to his dorm. He looks over Father’s homework and deems it doable in Professor Hanneman’s class tomorrow morning. He curls up in bed.

All alone.

He thinks he should maybe be—relieved, or something, that he can finally do some things without having someone breathing down his neck or making sarcastic comments about his every action. Instead it just feels like a part of him is missing, like the heartbeat he never had is gone once again. At that thought he places his hand against his chest, palm flat.

Still nothing. Byleth’s not sure what he was expecting—although he supposes that if merging his soul with a goddess doesn’t give him a heartbeat, then nothing ever will.

He looks down at the ring on his finger instead, the color pulsing ever so slightly—it’s still green, but when he lifts it up to the candlelight, it seems to have lightened a bit. As if to match the shade of his hair and eyes.

 _A prayer ring,_ Linhardt had said. _Before buying it, you can pray to the goddess for whatever you like, and the gremory selling it imbues that prayer into the ring, to decide the color of the crystal._

“The goddess, huh,” Byleth mumbles to himself. The gem winks up at him, firelight playing along its surface. If it were just a bit darker, he thinks it would be the same color as Sothis’ eyes.

He still doesn’t know what Linhardt had prayed for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u forgot about lysithea for a hot second despite this being a BE run and her essentially being honorary BE, don't worry, because so did i
> 
> next chapter: a reminder that this, in fact, the CF route


	16. pegasus moon (2) — “what a pointless existence.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During his mercenary days, they had always traveled on foot and rarely by carriage—there were few that could take all of them, after all, and they all agreed they’d much rather spend the money on food and beer than anything else. So Byleth had gotten fairly used to walking around everywhere, and his memories of riding in carriages are vague at best.
> 
> He truly, truly wishes it had stayed that way. Unfortunately, it’s been four days of traveling on carriage, and Byleth is certain absolutely nothing can shake this memory from his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [you’re not safe here anymore / this is the sound of war](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4hlAsmfXco) _
> 
> less ship, more plot (and fighting) in this one, rip. please enjoy!!

During his mercenary days, they had always traveled on foot and rarely by carriage—there were few that could take all of them, after all, and they all agreed they’d much rather spend the money on food and beer than anything else. So Byleth had gotten fairly used to walking around everywhere, and his memories of riding in carriages are vague at best.

He truly, truly wishes it had stayed that way. Unfortunately, it’s been four days of traveling on carriage, and Byleth is certain absolutely nothing can shake this memory from his head.

“You doing okay, kid?” Father asks, beside him. As expected of Edelgard, the carriage is spacious and well-furnished, so at least Byleth doesn’t have to deal with being cramped in with everything else. “Hang in there, we’re almost to Enbarr, and we’ll stop for the night. Look, you can see the Morgaine Ravine from here.”

Byleth doesn’t particularly want to move, else he get sick again, but he does peer out the window—the mountain range that separates Hresvelg territory from its eastern neighbors _is_ visible, and the familiarity helps calm him down a little. Father’s geography lessons had paid off after all. “Why did you have to bring me along?” he grumbles. “Aren’t we just going to stand there and watch?”

“Hey, you don’t get to see an Imperial succession everyday, do you? Figured it’d be a good learning experience. And the brats like you more than they do me, I’m pretty sure.”

Byleth briefly entertains the idea of Hubert liking him. Or liking anyone aside from Edelgard, in general. The thought is just amusing enough to distract him from the next bump in the road.

The door to the next carriage over creaks open, and Edelgard pokes her head through. “How are you, Byleth? Professor? We’ll be reaching Enbarr in another hour or two, and my father has arranged a feast for the visitors, so I should hope you’re hungry.” She smiles, looking extra reassuring for Byleth—she’s been doing that a lot the past four days—then ducks back into her shared carriage with Hubert.

A feast… Byleth sighs. He wonders if there’ll be fish. Or steak. Or both… either would make this awful journey worth it. He just hopes he doesn’t throw it back up on the return trip.

_“In accordance with the ancient covenant, and in keeping with the Hresvelg legacy... I swear that upon this throne, I shall use my reign to lead Fódlan to a new dawn and achieve peace for all…”_

“Byleth.”

Byleth suppresses a jolt of surprise, looking up from his book—the door of his guest room has been pushed open a sliver, but he doesn’t need to look outside to recognize the voice. “Hubert. What is it?”

“You seem occupied.” Hubert slips inside, shutting the door behind him—now the only source of light is the candle on Byleth’s bedside dresser. This does not at all make Byleth feel very safe. “Should I return later?”

“You’re already here. What do you need?”

Hubert inclines his head. “Very well. What do you think, about Her Majesty?”

Byleth frowns. “What do I think…? She seems like she will make a capable ruler—”

“Not that. Her ideals, I mean.” Hubert steps closer, though he’s still only barely visible in the candlelight. “You are well aware of the rampant corruption throughout Fódlan, caused largely by the Church’s hold on the land. Lady Edelgard’s wish is to dismantle the current political system of Fódlan and get rid of such injustice. What are your thoughts on that? Would you support her cause?”

“I… have never thought of it much,” Byleth says, if only to give himself some time to think. He holds no love for the Archbishop, that much is for certain, but he hasn’t exactly thought about it further than that. After a moment’s contemplation, he continues, speaking slowly, “I do not… agree with some of the Archbishop’s teachings, I suppose. And if Edelgard can truly… fulfill her ambitions, then all the better. But why do you ask now?”

Hubert nods, his expression sinister in the shadows. Then again, Byleth’s never seen him _not_ look sinister. “I see. Very good. Thank you for the answer.”

“You… er, you’re welcome?”

Byleth considers repeating his question, but Hubert’s already gone. With a sigh, he turns back to his book—one on faith magic, borrowed from Linhardt after Byleth had expressed his concern about having too much dark magic still inside him.

“So practice faith magic,” Linhardt had said, and shoved the textbook in his face. Byleth wishes it were that easy.

But he can’t focus on the words anymore—Hubert had brought to mind the events from earlier, the Imperial succession, with Father serving as witness to Edelgard being crowned the new emperor. (That’s right, she had even mentioned the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros serving as witness for previous successions, but she had chosen Father instead…) Byleth had been more interested in the Imperial Palace architecture, but thinking back on it now…

Injustices in Fódlan’s political system… he’s heard that somewhere before, hasn’t he? Ferdinand’s mentioned how unfair commoners and Crest-less nobles are treated before. Caspar’s habit for justice has gotten him riled up in arguments under this topic, too. And the Church’s hold on the justice order… Ashe had been most affected by it, when they had killed Lonato for rebelling against the Central Church.

Most of all, Father questions the Archbishop’s decisions and movements every step of the way. And with Mother’s death still wreathed in suspicion… if anyone would support Edelgard’s cause, Byleth thinks it would be him.

He sighs and closes the book, inserting between the pages the pressed flower bookmark Petra had given him for his birthday. He can’t focus on this anymore—the Aura spell is miles above Heal and Nosferatu, and that grand dinner from earlier had filled him up with enough steak to keep him contented for the rest of the week. Byleth crawls in the bed, almost double the size of the one in his monastery dorm room, and makes himself comfortable under the blankets.

Across his bed, leaning against the wall, is the Creator Sword. Byleth watches its Crest Stone pulsate faintly in the dark, and wonders what Sothis would say, if she were here.

With everything that had happened, Byleth thinks he should have expected this. He’s never attended an Imperial succession, but usually it happens at the decision of the current emperor, not the succeeding one, right? And the urgency in Edelgard’s movements, her own admittance to allying with Solon’s kind, the way Hubert seemed extra observant of the rest of the class as soon as they had arrived back at Garreg Mach…

With everything that had happened, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Edelgard, accompanied by a contingent of Imperial soldiers, tilts her chin up at the Archbishop and declares, “Yes. In fact, I gave the order. _I_ am the Flame Emperor.”

For a moment, the world seems to stop spinning on its axis. Byleth blinks, very slowly. His vision fades in and out, blurring momentarily, but the hope that this is a dream dissipates when the scene is the same as ever: Edelgard, across them, pointedly keeping eye contact with the shocked Archbishop and ignoring everyone else. Hubert, beside her. An army of Empire soldiers, already beginning to advance on the caskets containing the Crest Stones.

In his mind’s eye he sees Remire Village, going up in flames—he sees an empty bedroom where Linhardt should have been, an equally empty table in the library—he sees the limp bodies of students, killed as demonic beasts—he sees her handing over Athame, lips forming the words, _It is our weaknesses that push us to grow strong—_

“Insolence!” the Archbishop shouts, stepping forward, sneering down at the soldiers who lift their swords against her. “You will atone for the sin of trampling on this holy resting place!”

“Wait,” Ferdinand stammers, “wait, Edelgard—what—what is the meaning of—?”

“You made use of us?” Petra whispers. “Why…?”

“Edelgard?” he hears. It takes Byleth a moment to realize it’s Father—he doesn’t recognize his voice, broken as it sounds. At the back of his mind, he realizes this is the first time he’s heard Father call Edelgard by name—and it must be the same for Edelgard herself, too. “What are you…?”

Edelgard glances at Father, for the briefest of seconds, and her expression seems to soften—she opens her mouth to reply, but then the Archbishop whirls to face Father. “Jeralt,” she calls, “destroy these villainous traitors who dare dishonor our creator!”

Father’s arm jerks, like he had forced down a reflex—it’s his lance arm, Byleth dimly registers. “That is my _student,_ ” he’s saying, and he takes a step forward as if to approach Edelgard—

Edelgard rips her gaze away from Father, fixing it on the ground instead. “I’m sorry, Professor,” she breathes. “I cut this path, and now I must follow it.” Then she lifts her head again, whatever vulnerability that had been visible in her expression morphing into the firm determination Byleth has grown used to on the battlefield. “My friends, I ask that all of you stay back. It is not my intention to fight you.”

“Wait, E-Edelgard?” Bernadetta whimpers. “What—You can’t—”

“By order of the Adrestian emperor, Edelgard von Hresvelg,” Edelgard commands, lifting an arm towards her troops, “I command you to collect the Crest Stones! If anyone attempts to stop us, kill them!”

And then—everything happens too fast for Byleth to comprehend, because then the soldiers are advancing and—and he can’t _think,_ it’s all happening too _quickly,_ and he wants nothing more than to turn around and run out of here, because Edelgard can’t be the one across him in the battlefield, can she? No, shouldn’t he have expected this as soon as she told him she had allied herself with—with—

“Byleth!” someone shouts, and then—a glint of steel, the blade of an axe coming down his chest right before a jolt of electricity knocks it out of its owner’s hands. Byleth blinks, lets his mercenary instincts take over, and cuts down the soldier with the Creator Sword before he knows what he’s doing. Dorothea is running over, hands still smoking from the Thunder spell, and opens her mouth to speak, but—

Byleth runs and jumps, intercepting the lance inches from Dorothea’s back—he lands on top of the soldier and digs his sword deep in his throat, not bothering to watch the blood spray out like a fountain before turning back around. “Stay back,” he manages—for a moment he doesn’t recognize his own voice. He sounds pained, choked, strangled, and he hates to think about why. “I don’t—I don’t think they’ll attack if we stay away—”

“But—E-Edie, she—” Dorothea swallows and looks out at the other side of the Holy Tomb, where the Imperial army had entered from and where Edelgard stands, flanked by the commander who had spoken earlier and a number of soldiers. “What… What is going on, I…”

 _I don’t know,_ Byleth wants to say, _I don’t know, except I should have known, should have suspected her when she told me, should have…_ What should he have done? A plan this elaborate must have been years in the making. Maybe running into him all those months ago under the guise of being attacked by bandits had been part of it, too. So what should he have done? And what should he do now?

Run away?

There’s no time to think on it further—more soldiers are advancing, closing in on the two of them, and Byleth only lifts his sword to block the first attack. “Stop,” he tries, “we are not your enemies—”

But his words fall on deaf ears, as the soldier pressing in on him only growls in response and swings his lance, knocking the Creator Sword out of Byleth’s hands. Fire streams out from his palms before he’s even finished processing what happened, burning the man’s face—he screams and falls back, and Byleth grabs his sword off the floor to slice down another soldier aiming for Dorothea, who’s busy fighting off another two men. They’re not going to last separated like this, Byleth thinks—they have to get back to the others, _damn it, how had they gotten separated so easily and so quickly—_

He grabs Dorothea’s wrist, using his other hand to send a crack of thunder towards an approaching soldier. “Regroup,” he shouts over the clamor, and she nods, expression steeling into battle-hardened concentration.

 _Isn’t this wrong?_ a part of him thinks. _Isn’t she a student? Aren’t we all students? Why are we caught up in this? Why must we know how to fight—why must all we know be how to fight?_

They find Caspar first, weathering attacks while Bernadetta snipes from behind him, and Dorothea lets out an anguished noise when she runs her hands down the injuries on Caspar’s person. “Lin,” Caspar coughs, “Lin and Ashe—where are they? They were right there—”

“Hold on, Caspar, don’t talk,” Dorothea whispers, her Heal spell stuttering over Caspar’s bloodied arms. “How did you get this hurt? It’s only been a minute!”

“ _No!_ Where are they? I gotta—I have to—”

“I’ll go,” Byleth says, when Caspar breaks off to cough up blood. The action reminds him only too much of himself, but he shakes that thought away and glances back at Bernadetta, relatively unhurt but shaking in place, her quiver half-empty and her bow shaking in her grip. “Stay here,” he tells her, then darts back into the fight.

He finds Petra and Ferdinand fighting back-to-back, but _fighting_ doesn’t seem like the right word when it’s clear they’re only blocking attacks and trying to escape the army’s onslaught—Byleth points them to the general direction of the others, huddled away in a hidden corner of the Holy Tomb, and moves on. Even Leonie and Lysithea have been caught up in the battle, and Byleth has to duck beneath a jagged spike of dark magic he doesn’t recognize when Lysithea panics and sends it his way. He’s getting closer to the other end of the tomb, where he can see Father and the Archbishop in the middle of the soldiers—

_But where are Linhardt and Ashe?_

“ _Edelgard!_ ” he hears over the tumult—he’s never heard the Archbishop raise her voice this much, nor has he ever heard her sound so full of rage. “You foolish child! Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

From afar, Byleth can’t hear what Edelgard says in response, but he _can_ see how she looks. Whatever uncertainty she may have had when looking at Father or any of his classmates fades, replaced by cold, indisputable hatred. He thinks he may have seen a hint of that hatred, once or twice, hidden by the shadows of the monastery hallways or by heavy fog and the spindly branches of dying trees.

 _I should have expected it,_ Byleth tells himself, again, running through the crowd of soldiers racing for the caskets of Crest Stones, _I should have known, I should have done something—_

But what would he have done, anyway? If he could use a Divine Pulse and rewind time all the way back to the beginning, back to that morning in the outskirts of Remire Village, back to when he had jumped in front of an axe meant for Edelgard, back to when he had been given a choice between three Houses—

Would he have done anything different? Would anything have gone different?

Something flickers in the corner of his eye, bright white and familiar, and Byleth skids to a stop behind one of the structures in the tomb, narrowly missing an arrow that had been whistling through the air towards his throat—the archer is too far away to cast a spell at, but that’s hardly any of his concern now. _That light—_

He scans the area again, just in time to catch another glimpse of that spark of light—that unmistakable spark of a Heal spell, coming from behind a pillar. Byleth runs without thinking, only barely registering the sound of a second set of footfalls just behind him—

An arrow flies just as he turns around, and Byleth holds back a snarl when he knocks it out of the air with the Creator Sword, to the satisfying surprise of the archer who had followed him. But when he looks back, there are already two more soldiers closing in on Linhardt, bent over Ashe’s bloodied body, and—Byleth runs, runs, _runs,_ but he’s too _slow,_ again—

Linhardt’s head jerks up, eyes wide and wild, and he says nothing when he thrusts his hands out. The Heal spell dies, the comforting white light dying out to be replaced by—

Byleth feels it again, that change in the air, as if the wind itself were gasping in pain—

—cutting blades of wind, slashing through the soldiers’ chests and necks, blood spurting out of their wounds. Their corpses fall, hard, sword and axe clattering to the ground beside them; Linhardt lowers his trembling hands, staring at the blood pooling around the bodies for a moment, before he returns to focus on Ashe’s wounds.

But Byleth had seen it: there had been no burns on Linhardt’s palms. That wind, that corrupted reason magic he hated so much—it had been entirely intentional.

Byleth drops to his knees beside Linhardt, who doesn’t react when he places his hands over Ashe—he’s shaking and struggling to breathe, but alive. _The worst injury—_ pain spikes through his leg, so he concentrates on the blood flowing from the wound there first, ignoring Ashe’s broken cry as the Heal spell starts. “What happened?”

Linhardt shakes his head. His hands are shaking, the spell stuttering in and out of existence. “We tried to run, but there was a dark mage—trapped us with the Banshee spell, and then—” He shudders, looking away for a moment. There’s blood spattered across his cheek, and Byleth deeply hopes it isn’t his. “We were cornered by soldiers, and…”

“Okay,” Byleth says, “that’s enough. That’s alright.” He sounds like he’s speaking to himself more than to Linhardt, so he inhales and adds, “The rest are at the back. Let’s go.”

Linhardt tries to nod, but coughs and slumps forward instead—Ashe catches him before he can land face-first on the floor, yelping in pain as he does so. Byleth mutters a curse, because there’s no way he can carry both of them all the way to the other end of the tomb, but he can’t just leave them here and go back for help… He looks up and sees the army’s numbers thinning, Father’s lance whirling like a tempest and the Archbishop’s destructive magic in the center—

“Will you fight?” Ashe groans, pushing himself up to a sitting position. Linhardt slides down to rest on his lap, his brows drawn together. “For… For Lady Rhea?”

Byleth feels his fists clench of their own volition. “For her? No, never.”

“But—” Ashe cranes his neck to follow Byleth’s gaze. They can’t see Edelgard from here, her face blocked by the brunette commander, but the Archbishop has her eyes fixed forward, burning with anger. “Then for who, Byleth?” His voice shakes when he speaks again. “I can’t fight for the Church anymore. Not when they… Lonato…”

“Edelgard!” Father shouts. He pushes back another Imperial soldier, not even hard enough to do any real damage, and looks up at where Edelgard stands. “What are you doing? Why did you have to do this?”

Byleth stares.

The spearhead on Father’s lance isn’t bloodied, he realizes. So that was why something felt strange. So that was why…

“No,” Byleth says. He stands, casting one last Heal spell across Ashe’s leg. “No, I would never fight for the Archbishop. But I will fight for Father.”

When he gets there, the Archbishop has already flung her arms out before her—fire, far bigger and more destructive than the basic Fire spell, flies towards Edelgard. Father shouts _no,_ and the Archbishop yells something else, and Byleth trips over himself trying desperately to run faster, _faster,_ but he sees the end of Edelgard’s hair flicker and burn—

He falls to a stop, blinks, focuses. For a moment, the Archbishop’s gaze lands on him, her eyes widening as if in some sort of realization—but it’s gone and he’s back with Ashe and Linhardt. Run, run, run—

This time he’s fast enough, and he casts a shaky fog of miasma that catches the Archbishop off guard long enough that her Bolganone spell is slower by the slightest second. Edelgard drops out of the way, but her commander gets caught in its flames instead, and she snarls when she dives off the platform to swing her axe at the Archbishop. “How can you be so blind to your own evil!”

“Why—” The Archbishop moves out of the way, impossibly fast; Edelgard’s axe misses by a hair’s breadth. She thrusts her hands forward again, fire curling around her arms like fiery snakes. “How could _you_ do this? To think that a descendant of House Hresvelg would dare betray the holy church!”

Edelgard grits her teeth and lifts her axe again, but Father moves between her and the Archbishop before she can attack. “Wait! Edelgard, just wait,” he says, dropping his lance down to his side. “Lady Rhea, you calm down too—”

“I cannot _calm down!_ ” she cries, surging forward, the fire striking like a snake—Edelgard’s eyes widen and she shoves Father out of the way, only for the flames to scorch her arm, burning away a patch on her uniform sleeve. Father curses, holding Edelgard up and steadying her.

It’s the same way Byleth’s seen him do with everyone else a hundred times during practice, when they lost balance wielding an unfamiliar weapon or stumbled on an ill-placed item on the training grounds. Almost like it’s instinct to help them, to protect them—and Byleth thinks it is, it _must_ be, because despite everything there’s still concern in Father’s eyes, gentleness in the way he holds Edelgard’s arm.

The Archbishop’s eyes narrow. “Jeralt! Kill Edelgard at once.”

“You—” Father lifts his gaze, eyes blazing. “Rhea! What in hell are you talking about!”

“She is a danger to all of Fódlan,” the Archbishop growls. Fire gathers at her arms again, swirling dangerously, and Byleth feels hatred rise in him— _does she even care that she almost hurt Father? Did she ever care about Father at all?_ “Such a rebellious heart cannot be allowed to keep beating.”

Father frowns, stepping closer to the Archbishop. He still hasn’t bothered lifting his lance, as if he sees no need for it—as if he could never hurt either of the two standing before him. “Rhea. This isn’t you. Calm down, and we don’t have to kill a child—”

“No! This wicked girl dared defile the holy ground of our ancestors! Why can you not see?”

“All I’m seeing is someone ordering me to kill my own student!” Father shouts.

The Archbishop flinches back, the anger in her expression shifting uncomfortably into what looks like fear—her gaze flits around the tomb, and Byleth freezes when her eyes land on him. “Oh, Byleth,” she breathes, the fire flickering around her arms, “there you are—there you are, my child. You… If your father cannot do it—kill Edelgard, now.”

Byleth stares. “What?”

“It is to you that the goddess Sothis granted her power,” the Archbishop whispers, taking a step closer to him. Byleth’s first instinct is to back away, but he stands his ground and meets her eyes—something clouds the anger in there, something that looks almost like… “And now this girl dares to raise her blade against the Church—against the goddess herself. Against _you._ ”

Slowly, Byleth turns to face Edelgard—she’s silent behind Father, but doesn’t avoid his gaze when their eyes lock. Instead she breathes in, as if readying herself for Byleth’s judgment. _And it makes sense,_ he thinks, numbly. _It makes sense for me to kill her. She’s allies with Solon, with the Death Knight. She was behind Flayn’s and Linhardt’s kidnapping. She was behind the incident at Remire Village. She hurt all of us. Didn’t she?_

And yet—hadn’t he heard that strange voice underground, telling the Death Knight to leave Byleth behind—hadn’t Father told him, after Remire, about how the Flame Emperor had said he would have prevented this tragedy if they could—

“Byleth,” the Archbishop is saying, “Byleth, Byleth.” She steps closer, closer again, until she’s far too close for Byleth’s liking. Something itches under his skin, like ghostly insects crawling down his spine, and he remembers the name for this sensation—discomfort. “Please. It is not as if I wish for senseless murder. But this is not _senseless—_ don’t you see, Byleth? Don’t you realize? This is Edelgard going against the Church, and you are a _part_ of that society. Of that _family._ ”

Byleth blinks, and behind his eyelids he sees Edelgard in front of him, face lit only by the candlelight, saying, _I would never hurt you, nor Professor, nor any of our classmates,_ saying, _I only want to help, not in the way so many people are trying. Not in the way people might believe in, or find justice in._

He sees the Crest of Flames hovering between them, outlined in the same shade of lavender as Edelgard’s eyes. _Why did we go after you? We were worried, of course._

“You aren’t family,” Byleth says. He watches how the Archbishop’s—no, how _Rhea’s_ eyes widen in surprise, in realization, in fury—and he steps away from her, towards Edelgard and Father. “I have my own.”

“Byleth?” Edelgard breathes. “You—But—”

“How dare you,” Rhea growls—and Byleth means _growls,_ because the guttural noise she had just made cannot properly be classified as any human sound. “After everything we’ve done for you. After everything _I_ have done for you.”

Father’s gaze turns suspicious. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

But Rhea ignores him—her lips curl back into a vicious snarl and though the fire around her arms disappears, nothing about her stance makes Byleth feel any less in danger. “So, this is the choice you have made. You are just another failure.”

Something flickers at the edge of Byleth’s vision—and then he smells the tang of miasma, barely there and only noticeable from how familiar it is. Edelgard turns to look behind her, but Byleth stands his ground as Rhea advances, her every step sending cracks spidering through the floor of the Holy Tomb. Father throws an arm out in front of Byleth, like he’s done dozens of times before with the students during battle, and Byleth wants terribly to mean it when he tells Father he doesn’t need protection. “Rhea, stay back,” Father warns, his grip on his lance tightening. “You don’t have to—”

“Your presence soils this Holy Tomb and disgraces my brethren!” Rhea screams. Something crawls up her neck, down her arms, and Byleth realizes they’re _scales,_ turning her pale skin into even paler white and green. “I will not allow one who would lend our enemies strength to wield the power of the goddess Sothis!”

“ _You_ did it!” Father shouts, brandishing his lance at Rhea, perhaps for the first time in his life. “ _You_ gave the Crest of Flames to my child— _you_ somehow let the goddess in his head! How could _you?_ ”

Rhea turns cold eyes on Father, and both he and Byleth step back when they see her face—halfway through morphing into some reptilian creature, her jaws lengthening, teeth jabbing at her still-human lips and drawing thick green blood, her eyes pure white. _Like a demonic beast,_ Byleth thinks numbly. “If you will stand in my way, Jeralt, then so be it,” she hisses. “I will crush you like the rest—”

Her body glows green, and Byleth can’t _move,_ staring transfixed as he watches her neck elongate, her arms lengthen and fingers sharpen, a pair of wings ripping out from her back—someone grabs his arm and drags him and Father away—

An earth-shattering roar, and the Holy Tomb rumbles as a great white beast stands before them, empty eyes fixed on Byleth.

“—and then I will rip your chest open and take back your lifeless heart myself!”

“Professor, Byleth,” someone shouts, pulling Byleth back by the shoulder—the beast’s claw narrowly misses his chest. When he turns around, he meets Hubert’s eyes— _eyes,_ he belatedly realizes. His lank hair has been ruffled and pushed back, revealing the other eye Byleth so rarely catches a glimpse of. It’s exactly the same as his other one. Byleth wonders why he had expected something more. “We have to go. Hold on to me.”

“The others—” Byleth’s not sure if that’s him speaking, or Father—

“Are safe,” Hubert interrupts, grabbing both of their wrists and looking back—Edelgard is behind him, clutching his elbow. “Let us go,” he says, and closes his eyes, and then—

Byleth blinks, sees swirling, unending darkness, and thinks _no, I can’t be back, not there—_ but when he blinks again, a dimly-lit camp flickers into view around him, torches lining the walls, completely devoid of the stark whiteness of the Holy Tomb. He jerks away, looking wildly around—there are soldiers dressed in Imperial colors in the area, whispering students, neighing horses, clanking armor.

No giant white dragon, roaring in his face.

“This is one of the Imperial army’s provisional camps,” Hubert says. Byleth suppresses a jolt—he’d forgotten the rest of them were there. “Calm yourself. There is no danger—I’ve managed to warp all our allies here before the Immaculate One brought her own tomb down upon us.”

Byleth swallows, glancing around him—Edelgard looks nervous, and Father is surveying the area just the same. “The Immaculate One?”

“The Archbishop’s true form,” Hubert explains. He looks patient, for once, his expression looking strangely… not sinister. Which actually makes him _more_ sinister, Byleth vaguely thinks. “You saw that dragon-like beast, did you not? They call that the Immaculate One. Said to be a child of the goddess who cared for and protected the people.” He turns away and snorts. “You’ve seen the legends can hardly be trusted. Then again, this information _was_ found in the monastery library.”

“Are you sure?” Edelgard blurts out. “Professor. Byleth. Are you two sure about this?”

Father massages his forehead. There’s a cut on his shoulder, Byleth sees—and a darkening bruise on his arm, and another wound across his side, and the burns from Rhea’s fire magic on his other arm. “I’m already here, aren’t I?”

Edelgard glances up at him, then averts her gaze back down as if unable to bear it. “I know you were… are… I don’t know… I know you were loyal to the Archbishop. To the Church. You were captain of the Knights of Seiros, after all. But now—”

“Edelgard. Listen.” He shakes his head. “I _was_ loyal to her, yes. I _did_ work for her, and I _did_ trust her. But after what happened to Byleth… to my wife… She can’t expect me to ever have trusted her again. I haven’t put my full faith in her since then, even when she hired me for this position.” Father squeezes her shoulder reassuringly, his eyes softening at the edges when Edelgard looks up, some fragile hope glimmering in her eyes. “Let’s not forget when she ordered me to kill you, either.”

“You… Professor, you…” She swallows. “Thank you, my teacher,” Edelgard whispers at last, bowing her head. “This is more than I could have asked from you.”

Father shrugs, as if switching allegiances in the blink of an eye is nothing to worry about, and looks to Byleth. “And you, kid?”

Byleth stares. “Me?”

“Where do your loyalties lie? I’m not forcing you to—”

“With you,” he answers. Father stops, looking perplexed, and Byleth adds, “My loyalties lie with you, Father. And—” He pauses for a moment, looking at Edelgard.

Byleth doesn’t know if he’s _friends_ with Edelgard. They’re classmates, yes. Allies, teammates. He teaches her how to swing a sword and she teaches him how to balance an axe, something he still hasn’t quite mastered—the thought reminds him of how he had meant to ask her how to most effectively throw a hand axe without dislocating his shoulder, before all this had happened. They share meals sometimes—she likes sweets, unexpectedly enough, and she and Linhardt always have the worst staring contests over the last sweet bun during dinner.

Once, they had tea together with Dorothea and Petra, and Byleth had been taught how to braid Edelgard’s hair—he was surprisingly good at it. He still remembers how she had looked when Dorothea lent her a mirror: she had smiled, openly and easily, and for a moment Byleth had wondered if that would be how she always looked like if the world were a different place.

Ah. Maybe they are friends, after all.

“You heard me, back there,” he finally says. “I have my own family. And it isn’t with the Church.”

“Byleth…” Edelgard looks down again, and it occurs to Byleth that this must be the longest he’s seen Edelgard vulnerable in front of more than one person. “Thank you. After everything, I thought… no, never mind.” She shakes her head, sweeping her disheveled hair over one shoulder, and nods, her usual firm determination coming back in place. “I—I must speak with the others. They must still be confused… Hubert, if you could…”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Hubert nods at Byleth and Father. “Facilities are limited, but we have an armory and an infirmary, among others. Sleeping quarters are more limited, but arrangements will be decided later tonight. And…” Here he pauses, reaching up to smoothen his hair back over his eye as if on habit. “Words cannot express my gratitude, Byleth, Professor.”

As soon as he’s out of relative hearing distance—then again, it’s Hubert, Byleth has no idea how far his hearing range is—Father huffs in amusement. “Did you see that? Kid’s just shy after all.”

 _Kid…_ Hubert is a twenty-year-old man, isn’t he. “Father. Doesn’t this mean we will have to fight against the Knights of Seiros?”

Like that Father’s gaze falls, and he lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah. Was just thinking about that, too.”

“Oh.”

Silence falls between them. Byleth looks around the camp, but he doubts he’ll be finding any merchants selling gloves around here. A shame. He’s still stuck with his left hand bare and his right hand clothed, which according to Dorothea is not much of a fashion statement. Then, finally, Father speaks: “Would you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kill someone you know,” Father says, not meeting his eyes, “if it came down between their life or yours.”

Byleth doesn’t hesitate. “Them.”

“Really? Just like that?”

“Hasn’t it always been that way?” Byleth asks. “As mercenaries, I mean. It was always us or them. Right now doesn’t seem any different.”

“Yeah?” Father sighs again, this time sounding even more tired. “You say that now, but I don’t know if you can still make as fast a decision as now when the time comes.” Byleth opens his mouth to argue, but Father continues before he can speak. “I’ll be off to… wherever the infirmary is. All these injuries sting something awful. Go do your own thing.”

“But—” _How about you?_ Byleth wants to ask— _What will you do, if you have to kill someone you know? Kill Alois? Kill Gilbert?_ But Father’s already walking away, approaching an Empire soldier, and the words die in Byleth’s throat.

“Huh? Gloves?” Anna suppresses a laugh. “You really do have the strangest priorities, Byleth. Unfortunately I haven’t got any in stock right now, since I only had about two minutes to haul all my goods over to where darling Hubert was waiting, but I’ll make sure to update you if I happen on some.”

Byleth feels a smile come on, despite his rapidly-descending exhaustion. It’s mostly out of hearing her call Hubert “darling,” really. “Okay. Thanks, Anna.”

He’s not sure where else to go—he had gravitated towards where a small gaggle of merchants after seeing Anna’s distinct bright hair, had received an enthusiastic hug from her, but also realized he hadn’t had any gold on his person and decided the visit was moot until he could find a way back to his room at the monastery, which doesn’t sound possible right now. Byleth spends a few minutes looking around for Hubert, but gives that up as a lost cause too—even if he could find the man, he’s too cautious to let either of them back into the monastery so easily.

Byleth slumps against a nearby wall. _I want to sleep,_ he thinks, staring at a pair of soldiers carting weapons around. _I want to eat…_ Briefly he remembers the black and white cat from before, and wonders if it’s still in his room, napping away under his bed. He frowns—it had eaten some of his sweet buns that morning, before he’d left for the Holy Tomb, but nothing else. It must be hungry, too. _Need to look for Hubert—_

“Byleth? Is that you?”

He grips the handle of the Creator Sword before he finishes blinking, but relaxes when it’s only Petra and Ferdinand. “Oh. Hello.” Both of them look much the same as when Byleth had last seen them in the Holy Tomb, with most of Petra’s hair out of its usual neat braid and Ferdinand looking uncharacteristically worse for wear. “Has Edelgard spoken to you?”

“Indeed,” Ferdinand answers solemnly. “She is the emperor now, is she not… I found it odd my father had not contacted me since the start of the month, but now I see why. Which means I am the only one left who is qualified to guide her. I cannot leave her side, in good conscience.”

“Ah. That’s… That’s good to know.” If Byleth thinks about it, he can vaguely recall Edelgard dismissing some duke during her succession ceremony, but all he can really remember about the man was that he was bald and that Father had made a rude comment under his breath after he’d left. Makes sense. “I’m glad you’re with us, Ferdinand.”

Just like that, Ferdinand brightens and loses whatever serious expression he had been wearing. “Oh! Truly, Byleth? You mean that? That means the world to me!”

“I, er. Yes. I mean it. But—” Byleth looks over at Petra, who’s been unusually quiet for a while, idly fiddling with a rip in her uniform. “Petra. How about you? Are you alright?”

“What? I—Yes! I am fine. Thank you.” She sighs and looks down, dropping her hands back to her sides for all of two seconds before reaching up to fiddle with her hair instead. “I… I am torn. Between my country and the Empire.”

“Oh,” Byleth says, a little dumbly—Ferdinand looks equally uncomfortable beside her.

He wracks his head for anything else to say, but he doesn’t know much about the situation between Brigid and the Adrestian Empire, aside from the former being a vassal state of the latter. Ferdinand coughs, then asks, gently, “Your goal is to break the unfair treaty Brigid is under and force the Empire to acknowledge it as an equal, is it not?”

Petra nods. “I have no love for the—the Empire. You all already know I am here as a hostage, for the Empire, so that Brigid will not rebel again. So I… I used to believe I must grow strong enough to crush the Empire for Brigid to be free.”

Byleth stills. _Will you leave?_ he wants to ask. _Am I going to have to fight against you? Will I have to choose between your life or mine?_

“But—Lady Edelgard is my friend.” Petra swallows. “All of you are. And I have seen for myself how Fódlan is governed—and Edelgard is not fighting this war for no reason. Before this, I used to think about how we are both heirs to our respective thrones—well, it is just me, now. And I refuse to fall behind.”

“Petra.” Ferdinand clears his throat. “Does this mean… er, what you are saying is…”

Petra turns to face him, the uncertainty on her face replaced by familiar conviction. “Edelgard is strong,” she says, “but I am strong, too. I will fight in this war with her, with you—with my friends—but I will be doing it in the name of my home, not for the Empire.” Her eyes narrow, in the way Byleth has seen them do so whenever she goes to hunt. “I do not need to defeat her for our two countries to be equals. That is what I believe.”

Byleth feels his shoulders relax—he hadn’t noticed how much tension had gathered there, and he exhales heavily. “Petra—”

“You had me worried!” Ferdinand exclaims, releasing his own relieved sigh. “I do not think I would be able to stomach facing you in battle, Petra! Goodness, but do I admire your resolve. You truly will make a wonderful leader for Brigid.” He nods excitably. Byleth has never quite seen his similarities to one of the monastery dogs as clearly as right now. “I will do everything I can to support your dreams!”

Petra blinks, looking pleasantly surprised. “Oh. Yes, thank you, Ferdinand! Your support is appreciated.” She turns to Byleth then, and smiles warmly. “Byleth, you are fighting for Edelgard as well, yes? It was only a moment, but—” She frowns. “Before Hubert warped us out, I thought I heard a terrible roar…”

“Oh,” Byleth says, “that was the Archbishop.” He pauses. “Rhea,” he corrects himself. He can’t let himself be afraid of saying her name, else the fear may begin to control him.

Ferdinand makes a strangled noise. “P-Pardon?”

“Rhea,” Byleth repeats. Is he pronouncing it right? This is the first time he’s saying her name. Then again, this is how everyone else pronounces her name, so—

“That was Lady Rhea?” Petra gasps. “T-That loud roar? And the bright light? How do you—er, what do you mean?”

Byleth scratches his cheek. He doesn’t feel up to repeating whatever Hubert had said, and to be honest he doesn’t even remember half of it anymore aside from the general understanding that Rhea can transform into a giant dragon, which in his opinion is the most important part anyway. Thinking about it, could _he_ turn into a giant dragon? Rhea is most probably connected to the goddess somehow, being the Archbishop and everything, so _theoretically_ Byleth should probably have the same or similar abilities. One of which could include turning into, as mentioned, a giant dragon.

For the second time, Ferdinand clears his throat. “Er. Byleth? Are you… Are you there?”

“What? Oh.” Byleth shakes the thoughts away, then reconsiders and instead files them into a little part of his head to review later. “She can turn into a dragon. That’s…” _All I care about._ “All I know.”

“Oh.” Petra looks a little disappointed.

“You can ask Hubert for details,” Byleth adds, somewhat guiltily. He already knows Ferdinand hates Hubert’s guts, so at least Hubert will only have to speak with Petra.

Byleth wanders around the camp a little longer—there aren’t many people he recognizes, mostly Imperial soldiers and some nervous-looking students, and he wonders where the rest of his classmates are for all of one second before he turns around and asks someone where the infirmary is. He finds the rundown-looking warehouse-converted-infirmary already crowded when he arrives, around a half-dozen bodies burnt beyond recognition lying outside, no doubt the work of Rhea’s magic—no one else in the Black Eagles has fire that burns this terribly.

Without thinking, he places his bare hand on one of the harsher burns. It’s still warm.

“All healers!” someone shouts. The voice is strangely familiar, but Byleth knows this isn’t anyone from his class… “All available healers, anyone who can do faith magic, get over here now—hey! Byleth!”

Byleth stares incredulously at the head that pokes out from the doorway. “P… Professor Manuela?”

Manuela squints back at him. Her white physician coat is stained with blood, and its hem drags wetly across the floor. “What are you doing just standing there, young man? I’ve seen you improve in faith magic throughout the year like no one else, so hurry up and get inside!” Then she ducks back in, as if a member of the Church helping tend to wounded Imperial soldiers is no big deal.

He hurries into the warehouse, running mostly on instinct now, and almost runs back out when the full cacophony of the infirmary hits him—there are injured everywhere, sitting or lying on every bit of available space, and healers rushing back and forth with medical supplies and faith magic still fading from their bloodied hands. For a moment the noise is too _much—_ it shouldn’t be any different from a battlefield, Byleth knows, and yet—

Manuela looks up, catches his eye, and shouts, “Over there, at the end,” and Byleth doesn’t bother wondering about why she’s here, pushing past the crowd to get to the leftmost end of the area instead. It occurs to him that he isn’t just a killer anymore—he’s a _healer,_ too.

He sort of likes how that sounds.

There are fewer healers at his end, and Byleth quickly realizes it’s because the patients’ injuries here aren’t as severe. Still, the wounds will worsen without attention, so Byleth gets to work immediately—he can feel the faith magic brimming at his hands, as if ready and waiting to be used. It’s a different feeling from how dark magic demands from him, he thinks as he casts a Heal spell on a burn—faith magic feels somewhat imploring instead, as if knowing it’s there to help, to heal rather than kill.

A twinge of pain—Byleth points at the soldier’s ankle. “Sprained it?”

The soldier blinks, looking nonplussed. “I—Yes, I mean—well, it certainly hurts, but how did you know? I hadn’t said anything…”

Byleth shrugs. “You know,” he says vaguely, as he moves his hands across the man’s leg, “it’s a healer thing.”

He goes through the patients one by one until more healers join to help—Byleth catches Dorothea’s eye, and the smile she gives him is pained but genuine. He spots a familiar face, too, mixed in among the Imperial monks—pale blonde hair swept over one shoulder, a gentle voice reassuring patients. He must have seen her before in the monastery, but even when she looks up and gives him a kind smile so out of place in the bustling infirmary, he can’t quite place her name or House.

Eventually the infirmary empties out, though Byleth has no idea how long it takes or what time it is once all but the incapacitated have left the tent. Professor Manuela sighs and slumps against an empty bed, wiping the sweat off her brow. “Good job, everyone! Take a break now, before your hands fall off—we’ll be doing plenty more work soon, the way this is all going.”

Careful not to let Manuela hear, Byleth asks Dorothea, “Has Professor Manuela always sided with the Empire? I was… under the impression she’s a follower of the faith.”

Beside him, Dorothea stretches her arms over her head and fixes her askew hat. “She was in the Mittelfrank Opera Company like me, and, well… you could say she’s seen for herself the injustices in Fódlan’s politics.” She turns away with a sour laugh. “She was born in Enbarr, too, and I’m sure you know how well they treat commoners there. And what does the goddess care about her followers?” she mutters, spite leaking into her voice.

“Oh.” Byleth looks down—his palms are singed from mild magic overuse. Nothing that won’t heal with time, but still, he wishes… “Is that why you’ll fight, for Edelgard?” he asks, to keep his own thoughts away. “To improve the status of commoners?”

Dorothea smiles—it looks more strained than anything, but it’s something, Byleth supposes. “That’s one reason, certainly. She’s really gone and started a war, hasn’t she… what I’m more worried about is how many lives this is going to cost.” She sighs, and the smile drops like a stone. “I know it’s for a noble cause, and that the current system in Fódlan has been going on for too long to rely on a peaceful rebellion. But I can’t help but think about the sacrifices people everywhere are going to have to make.”

“I…” Byleth hadn’t even thought about that, and for some reason shame eats at his chest. It must say a lot, he thinks, that he doesn’t register people’s lives as anything significant anymore—maybe he can blame that on his mercenary upbringing, or his suppressed emotions, or any number of things. Or maybe he’s always been this way, and that’s the ugly, shameful truth he doesn’t want to admit. “That makes sense.”

“Hm. And here I thought it didn’t.” She shakes her head. “Never mind. It must be late now—you should rest, Byleth. We all need to.”

“Ah—wait, Dorothea—” Byleth bites down on his tongue. Why is he even embarrassed about this? It’s just a question, isn’t it? “Have you seen Linhardt? And—And Ashe and Caspar?” They’re the only other Eagles he hasn’t spoken to yet—he’d help patch up Leonie and Lysithea’s injuries earlier, and Bernadetta had been clinging to Father like a lost child, fretting over her loyalties.

Dorothea’s eyes soften. “At the other end,” she says simply, waving a hand towards the right. “We couldn’t wake Lin up, which made us all worry, but it turns out he was just in one of his ridiculously deep sleeps. I can’t believe that boy sometimes…”

“T… Thank you.” After a moment’s contemplation, he adds, “For everything, Dorothea. I mean it.”

She blinks at him, then covers her laugh with her hand—it sounds almost painfully genuine, and Byleth wishes dearly he’ll always be able to hear her laugh like this. “Why, Byleth! What’s that supposed to mean, you fox? And here I thought I was the tease. But—” Her expression sobers into a smaller smile. “You’re welcome. And thank you as well.”

As promised, Byleth finds Linhardt curled up in one of the infirmary beds, the blankets thrown over his head—sitting up in the bed beside him is Ashe, speaking lowly to Caspar, who’s seated on the edge of Ashe’s bed. “Byleth!” Caspar calls, his voice several volumes too loud for a place with resting patients; Ashe shushes him, and Caspar sheepishly continues in a forced whisper. “What happened with Lady Rhea? Ashe said she—turned into a dragon, or something?”

“Or something,” Byleth confirms.

Caspar leans back with a loud groan. “Wish I could’ve seen _that_ part, at least… I knew it! She isn’t skilled in brawling for nothing after all!”

“I don’t think being a dragon and being good at brawling have any connection at all,” Ashe says.

“Really? Says who?”

“You can’t _brawl_ with _claws…_ can you?”

“Sure you can! You can punch anyone with anything if you try hard enough!”

“Could you two have this argument a little _quieter,_ ” Linhardt grumbles, voice just barely audible from under the covers. “My head is still ringing with Edelgard’s voice. I think I’m suffering auditory hallucinations. Every time I close my eyes, I start hearing her shouting in my ear. Very unpleasant.”

Caspar frowns. “Maybe you should get that checked by Professor Manuela.”

“I _did._ She just told me to sleep it off. Like I do with everything.”

“She has a point,” Ashe says. Then he sighs and looks down at his lap, playing with his fingers. “As for Edelgard… I can’t stop thinking about what she said either.”

Byleth carefully sits himself down on a nearby, unoccupied bed. “She’s spoken to you about what she wants from this, then.”

Ashe nods. “I don’t trust the Church,” he says. “Not after they killed Lonato and Christophe. I need to know the truth about them, and the documents I found in the Western Church Headquarters just gave me more questions than answers. But this means I’ll have to fight against Faerghus, don’t I?”

“You don’t know that,” Caspar mumbles, uncharacteristically quiet. “Maybe—Maybe this’ll just be between the Church and the Empire. No need for the Kingdom and the Alliance to get involved.”

“That’s just it. The Central Church is this big giant influence across all of Fódlan that picking a fight with them means picking a fight with everyone.” Ashe closes his eyes and reaches up to press the balls of his palms to his eyelids. “I mean—they didn’t have to _kill_ Lonato! To just execute him like that—” He breaks off with a choked sound, burying his face completely in his hands.

Caspar swallows and looks down, gaze fixed on the white bed sheets. He must have seen what happened when Lonato had been killed, Byleth realizes. It was their class that had been sent on that mission, after all. “Yeah,” he says, “they didn’t.”

“What?” Ashe sniffs.

“They didn’t have to kill him,” Caspar says, raising his voice. “They didn’t have to kill a lot of people when they could’ve spent that time helping out others who needed their help more than people needed to get killed. Does that make sense? It does to me.”

Ashe lays a shaky hand atop Caspar’s own. Byleth suddenly feels like he’s looking on something he shouldn’t and casually averts his gaze. “Does this mean you’ll be fighting against the Church?”

“If—If Edelgard really means it when she says she’ll make Fódlan a better place, for _all_ people, then—that sounds like justice to me, you know? Something I could fight for without second-guessing my every move!”

A wet laugh. “You’re right. I—I guess that does make sense.”

The lump under the blankets shifts slightly, and Linhardt’s blue eyes peer out from beneath, just barely visible from Byleth’s perspective. “Are they done?” he stage-whispers. “I’m a little afraid to look, in case I see something a little…”

“Hey!” Caspar snaps. “W-What are _you_ talking about, huh, Linhardt!”

“Oh, nothing.” Linhardt rolls over until he’s lying on his back. Presumably, anyway—Byleth can’t exactly see much of him. “So that’s sorted out, then. And you, Byleth? I’m assuming you’ll be fighting with Edelgard as well. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

“I am,” Byleth agrees. “But… Linhardt, you…”

For a while, Linhardt says nothing—he stares blankly up at the tent ceiling instead, and Byleth takes the time to look at what little he can see. His hair is a mess, coming undone from his usual ponytail, and Byleth can spot the ends of the tattered white ribbon peeking out from under the covers. At least Linhardt hadn’t lost it—he wouldn’t look right without it. “I don’t quite know, yet,” he finally says, voice barely louder than a breath. “Edelgard’s words—have logic, I admit. I’m inclined to support her, in fact. But to go in battle? Against people we know? Against people we’re friends with?”

Silence hangs in the air among them, so heavy it’s almost corporeal. Byleth wants to cut through it with the Creator Sword. If only all problems could be solved that way, he thinks.

Linhardt rolls to lie on his side this time, looking up at Byleth. There’s too little visible of his face for Byleth to accurately discern his expression, but if he had to guess, he’d say Linhardt looks melancholic. “I am tired, of all this fighting,” he murmurs. “I tire of taking lives. It seems as if no one has ever tried to speak with each other before, in the entire history of this world. Is this all we are made for? To fight, and kill, and wage wars to prove who is right?”

Another shuffle. He’s back to lying on his stomach, eyes pointed away from Byleth. “What a pointless existence, then,” Linhardt sighs. “I am beginning to tire of it, too.”

Byleth swallows. “Linhardt…”

“Stay a while,” he says, when Byleth trails off, unable to find a single word to continue with. “You don’t have to explain anything. Or do anything. Or… anything, anything. Just stay a while with us.”

“Oh,” Byleth says. “Okay,” he says. This is something he can do. Besides—staying has always been easy. It’s knowing he has to leave later that hurts more. “Are your hands okay?” he asks, softly, quiet enough that Linhardt can pretend he hadn’t heard him.

But Linhardt shifts around beneath the sheets until his hands poke out from beneath. “No.”

“Okay,” Byleth says again, not really caring that he probably sounds silly. He takes Linhardt’s hands in his, ignores the slight sting as he casts another Heal spell, and watches the magic burns fade away. They’re not from reason magic, he can tell—those are deeper, darker, and can leave scars when untreated.

He considers asking Linhardt about the blades of wind from earlier. In the end, he decides against it—what’s there to ask, anyway? He thinks he already knows.

The barracks available are pitifully small, clearly meant for only one person to stay in for a limited time. Thankfully Byleth only has to share with Father, something he’s long used to, and he doesn’t mind taking the floor, but he worries for everyone else who has to share with more than one other person.

Dinner that night is composed of stored goods, mostly—Byleth convinces Hubert to warp with him to the monastery undercover, and they scavenge the storehouse of crops and meat. (Byleth finds the cat scratching mournfully at his room door, smuggles it away in his coat, and feeds it bits of fish back at the base camp.) Linhardt isn’t at the makeshift dining hall, among others. Byleth tells himself he’s resting in bed and that Caspar will save him a portion, but it doesn’t stop the niggling worm of worry inside him anyway.

It’s cold with only a few blankets for cover in the barracks, but it’s nothing Byleth can’t bear for a few nights. Father is quiet, idly writing in his worn journal, then finally speaks up just as Byleth’s about to drift off. “You’re sure about this, right?”

“You’re asking a question you know the answer to,” Byleth sleepily responds.

“Humor me, kid.”

“Yes. I’m sure. And you are too, right?”

“Right.” There’s no hesitation there, which Byleth takes some comfort in—Father doesn’t go back on his word. “I’m just worried. About the rest of the students. They’re kids—they aren’t supposed to be soldiers fighting in a war.”

“Aren’t we all?” Byleth mumbles. “There shouldn’t be a war in the first place. If the Archbishop—if Rhea were a better person. Did more to help her people. But she didn’t.”

“But she didn’t,” Father echoes, voice low. Then he sighs, closing his journal and setting it on the dresser. “Alright, enough war philosophy. Get to sleep, kid. We’re gonna need as much of it as we can before everything starts.”

“Mm. Okay.”

“Oh!” Father turns to look down at him from the bed, and Byleth very reluctantly cracks an eye open. The cat is all snuggled up to Father’s side, much to his amusement. “And no sleepovers tonight! I want you at full energy tomorrow, and _that_ won’t help.”

Byleth stares at him, hoping the bewilderment is clear on his face. “What?”

“You know.” Father waves a hand in the air. “With the Hevring boy. Like last time.”

 _Last ti—oh._ “That won’t happen,” Byleth reassures him. Then, perhaps a bit more sulkily than he would have liked, he adds, “Besides, he’s made it clear he doesn’t want me in his bed.”

A pause.

Father’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. “ _What now?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [this](https://twitter.com/meridachii/status/1196541797390069762) is the map i used for reference, in case anyone might need it for their own fics LOL  
> \- petra's characterization does not end here FYI. imo she's heavily filipino-coded and i will be taking that into my grubby hands
> 
> next chapter: i think you all know what's coming


	17. lone moon — “when i’m sure about it, i’ll tell you then.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Byleth…?”
> 
> He halts in place. The light of an oil lamp washes over Byleth before he can hide. He takes a deep breath, stays perfectly still, and looks up. “Flayn.”
> 
> “You are… You…” She’s shaking terribly, the lamp trembling along with her and casting quivering shadows on the walls. “You should not be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [is this the end of the line / and can we make it in time?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoxKX3bztSs) _
> 
> this extremely-on-time update (i'm 12 hours ahead of EST lol) is brought to you by the sudden influx of comments this week! idk what brought it on but thank u all very much for that!! i typically don't reply (unless you ask a question or want me to respond) because it feels like cheating by raising the comment count but know i read and reread them all ❤
> 
> as usual, please enjoy the chapter!! (also, listen to the song)

“Is that everything yet?”

“No,” Byleth mutters, stuffing the books into the bag as fast as he can. The dark mage accompanying him, one of Hubert’s associates, groans under their breath. “Just—another minute. I’m almost done.”

He darts back to the library shelf, grabbing everything in the hidden compartment and stacking them up in his arms. Byleth hadn’t been planning to put the books back when he had first found them a few months ago, but after seeing Seteth and the librarian constantly conversing in low tones and patrolling the library at the oddest hours, he had gotten paranoid enough to return the volumes. Only after reading them from cover to cover and copying down important points for himself, of course.

Still, many of the tomes are worth retrieving for the magic-based troops in the army to review, and his crumpled, tea-stained notes are hardly appropriate to be passed around. So here he is, back at the library, trying not to throw every single book he finds into the sack the dark mage painstakingly lifts up for him.

“Okay—” He checks over each secret panel again, closing them as he goes, and nods. “That’s everything. Come on—”

“Byleth…?”

He halts in place. The mage slips silently into the shadows, and Byleth tries to follow, but the light of an oil lamp washes over him before he can hide. He takes a deep breath, stays perfectly still, and looks up. “Flayn.”

“You are… You…” She’s shaking terribly, the lamp trembling along with her and casting quivering shadows on the walls. “You should not be here.”

“Neither should you,” Byleth replies. He’s not sure how he’s keeping his voice steady, but he’s not complaining. The dark mage is across him, tucked away between two shelves, and much too far away to make a rush for with Flayn standing in front of him. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”

“I… I was… l-looking for a book.”

“Really? So was I.”

He moves to retrieve one of the books he’d slipped into his coat, but bright white magic flares to life in Flayn’s hands, her lamp clattering onto a table behind her. “ _No!_ Don’t move! Or I will—I will—”

“You’ll what?” Byleth asks, very softly. He’s read up on the various faith magic spells, mostly to familiarize himself with them, but he doesn’t recognize the one Flayn has ready at her palms. _A bright light… is that it?_ “What will you do, Flayn?” She’s blocking the way back to the dark mage, and it’s too dangerous to make a run for it with an unknown spell ready to strike and possibly eviscerate his face…

Flayn swallows. The magic wavers, as if it’s just as unsure as she is. “I do not wish to fight, Byleth,” she whispers. “You saved my life once. I owe you a great debt. I cannot repay that by harming you. But I… I cannot let you walk away from here either!”

“How about this?” Byleth takes a very small, very deliberate step forward. Flayn’s breath hitches and the magic intensifies again, nearly blinding by now, but she doesn’t attack. “Let go of the spell. We’re in the library. It’s dangerous.”

“You are more dangerous right now,” she mumbles.

“Am I? I have no weapons on me.” Partly true—Byleth has no _visible_ weapons on him. After much contemplation, he’d left the Creator Sword behind for this exact purpose, and he’s felt terribly unbalanced without it at his side for the past few minutes. “I won’t hurt you, Flayn,” he adds, gently. “It isn’t as if I want to.”

She sniffs and lowers her arms a fraction. The magic’s light dims, just enough for Byleth to face Flayn without having to squint. “Why are you here? We… We have been ordered to attack on sight. Kill, if we must. My brother would never forgive me if he finds out I am speaking with you right now.”

The Imperial spies scattered through the monastery have reported much the same, although it feels somehow different hearing it from someone Byleth personally knows. “I’m sorry. I needed to…” _Needed to see this place one last time._ “Needed to borrow some books again.”

Flayn chokes out a laugh. “I—Pardon?”

“Borrow some books—”

“Byleth,” she cuts in, “if I were anyone else, you would be dead.”

“Are you so sure about that?” he returns. “No faith in my abilities, I suppose.”

“No! It is—It is that—” Flayn exhales harshly, looking down at her feet and taking a shaky breath. Byleth takes another tiny step forward, and another. “I do not want you to die! We may be on opposite sides of a war, now, but I do not want you to die, Byleth! You… We spent so much time in here together,” she breathes, voice watery, and Byleth pauses in his steps. “Do you not remember? I learned more about reason magic in here with you than anywhere else in my whole life. B—Before everything happened, I was—I wanted to ask you how to cast the Thunder spell—”

“Flayn.”

“I do not understand,” she continues, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment. “Did you never care for us? For me? Not once, throughout your time here in the monastery? I—I thought you did, but now you are waging war against the Church, and—and I need to know the truth! Please, why would you do this?”

Byleth glances across the aisle. The dark mage nods back, palms beginning to shimmer with the now-familiar violet darkness of the modified Warp spell. “I do care about you, Flayn,” he says, steeling himself when her head snaps up to look at him, looking alarmed at his sudden proximity. “Exactly why my fight is not with you.”

He sprints across the narrow aisle, jerking to the side to avoid the sudden flash of faith magic—and feels horror clutch his heart when he smacks into the table behind Flayn, knocking the oil lamp over onto the wooden floor—

Byleth is used to fire. He would sit around a large one with the mercenaries every night during dinner, after all, and later he had begun to treat it as a friend whenever he called upon a Fire spell. And somehow these pushed the fact that it is merciless, that it is destructive, to the back of his mind until he had nearly forgotten about it.

Until now, as he watches the library erupt in flames, and hears Flayn’s screams ring in his ears. Byleth scrambles back, thrusting an arm through the fire and ignoring the heat, groping blindly—for one second his fingers brush against a wrist, for one second he hears Flayn cry out his name—

Then a cold hand clamps down on his arm, and the darkness pulls him away from the burning library.

When he blinks again, they’re back at the camp, and Byleth collapses heavily onto the ground. Flames still cling to his arm, scorching his bare hand. “We… We have to go back.”

“What?” the mage yelps. “You set that library on fire! Not only was the whole place made of wood, it’s got hundreds of books too! It’s probably burnt to a crisp right now, alright?”

“ _No!_ ” Byleth yells, leaping back up to his feet. For a moment the Crest of Flames sparks to life in front of him, and the flames on his arm sputter and blink out, the pain already beginning to recede. “We have to go back! Now! She—She’s still—”

The mage shakes their head, slowly backing away from Byleth. “You risked enough talking to that girl,” they snap. “Any longer and you might as well have gone over to their side! Personal relations mean nothing on the battlefield. I thought a mercenary of all people would know that.”

They drop the sack on the floor in front of Byleth, stalking away and muttering under their breath. Byleth stares down at the books that spill out from the opening, all of them on dark magic, none of them Flayn would have wanted to learn.

He kneels down, shakily retrieves the book he’d slipped in his coat. _A Study on Faith Magic,_ apparently translated from the notes and records of Saint Cethleann herself. Linhardt can recite passages in his sleep, and had just about demanded Byleth read it before practicing any faith magic more advanced than the Heal spell.

Flayn’s favorite book, too.

_Would you do it? Kill someone you know, if it came down between their life or yours._

“I don’t know,” Byleth whispers, clutching the book close to his chest. “I don’t know anymore.”

Perhaps that’s a lie, though—he had just done what he said he would.

The month passes slowly.

Byleth buries himself in work. Everyone does—there are weapons to be forged, armor to be repaired, battalions to be trained. Father, along with Edelgard’s personal guard Ladislava and army general Randolph, push the soldiers (and the students) into backbreaking practices and exercises not even the mercenaries were subjected to. Everyday more supplies and resources are warped in, and on the rare days Edelgard isn’t moving through Adrestia with Hubert, she talks strategy to anyone who stops and listens.

Warping back to the monastery is impossible now, though. “Heavily warded,” Hubert reports, when none of the mages can activate the Warp spell there. “It seems they have finally increased protection around there. The closest we will be able to reach is the town directly south of it, but there would be no point—the gates are patrolled at all hours.”

“No back entrances?” one of the mages barks.

“None that I know of. We may be able to approach from underground, through the dungeon in the passageway to Jeritza’s room, but we risk trapping ourselves and become unable to warp back…”

Byleth spends more time in the infirmary than he had been expecting. At first it’s mostly because Linhardt and Dorothea, practitioners of faith magic, do too, but soon he realizes it’s because he’s _needed_ there, as a healer. Small riots and skirmishes all across the continent lead to injured soldiers coming in and out—Crest-less children born out of wedlock, abandoned by their noble parent and left to fend for themselves, or slaves breaking free from their captors and rebelling against the upper-class. “You’re the Ashen Demon, ain’t ‘cha?” one of them asks, rubbing at his eyes as if unable to believe them. “Heard you got into that academy free of charge—why fight now?”

“I have no love for the Archbishop.” Byleth runs a hand across the man’s body, hiding a wince when his chest throbs with pain. “She manipulated me. The same as the rest of us.” Then, with considerable effort, he casts as strong a Heal spell as he can and watches, just as surprised as his patient, as the jagged piece of iron digs itself out of the man’s gaping chest wound.

“Cripes! How’d you do that? I ain’t ever seen any healer in my village do somethin’ half as painless!”

Byleth plucks the bloodied shard out of the air and sets it on the table. The tip of a sword, he deduces. It’s a miracle the man’s still alive and coherent. “It comes with practice.”

The man’s brow furrows. “But, say, don’t faith magic come from faith in the goddess and everythin’? I mean, gotta be called faith magic for a reason, don’t it?”

Byleth tilts his head. “It doesn’t have to be faith in the goddess,” he explains, waving his hand over the man’s chest again to stitch up the wound. “Just faith. In someone, in the world, in your leader. In yourself, most of all. I learned that the hard way.”

When the man falls asleep, snoring lightly, Byleth sighs and leans against the wall. That hadn’t been a regular Heal spell—had it? It had looked similar, had felt similar, had done essentially the same thing, but it had been several times stronger than his usual healing. It had taken far more out of him, too—his palms are unburnt, but stinging and on the verge of going numb. _If not Heal, then…_

“That was a lovely Recover spell, there.”

Byleth turns, and manages to hide the dull flicker of surprise when he meets unfamiliar gentle blue eyes. “You’re…”

“We did not speak much at the monastery, did we?” She smiles again, blonde hair curling around her face. “I am Mercedes, from the Blue Lions House. A bit unfortunate we must meet under such circumstances, but it is a pleasure all the same.”

“Oh. Yes. The pleasure is mine.” _Mercedes…_ Byleth’s heard that name once or twice before. Had it been from Ashe? It makes sense—they were both part of the Blue Lions. “You decided to support Edelgard?”

Mercedes turns away, sweeping her hair away from her face. “I am not keen on this war, and all the casualties it will result in,” she murmurs. “But her ideals to create a society, where Crests will not be needed for people to be valued… I do support that, yes. Even if I must turn against the Church for it.”

“Oh. That’s… The decision must have been hard,” Byleth murmurs. He scratches his arm, stares straight ahead of him if only to ignore the fire flashing behind his eyes. “To fight against the Church, I mean. After everyone we know there, it’s…”

“Yes. It truly was.” She tilts her head, then smiles sadly. “But I must admit, I have my own… ulterior motives for my decision.”

“Ulterior…?”

“Mercedes?” someone calls—they both turn, and Byleth find Professor Manuela hobbling around with an ice pack against her forehead. “Oh, hello, dears. Sorry to interrupt this doubtless riveting conversation, but I need Mercedes right now—one of your patients is asking for you, over there—”

Mercedes nods without question, but gives Byleth one last smile before walking away. Manuela groans and massages her forehead, where Byleth can see the edges of a dark bruise peeking beneath the ice pack, and stumbles after her.

Linhardt ambles into view, looking utterly exhausted. The bags under his eyes have never looked darker than now, and Byleth doesn’t like the sight of them. “Where are they heading?” he mumbles.

“I don’t know. Somewhere.”

“Mm. Very eloquent. Very specific.” Linhardt yawns and sits himself on a nearby bed, kicking his shoes off (they skid across the floor and end up directly beneath the bed beside him) and curling up like a cat. After a moment’s thought, Byleth moves closer and drapes the blankets over his body. “Oh. Thank you.”

“Do you know what the Recover spell is?”

A pause. Byleth looks down to see Linhardt’s eyes closed, and wonders if he’s somehow already asleep. But then Linhardt sighs, and says, “Why?”

“Mercedes just told me I did it, but…”

“Oh, did you? If it just felt like a stronger Heal spell, that’s probably it.” Linhardt yawns, cracking an eye open to look up at Byleth. “So you finally learned that one. About time.”

Byleth gives him his best frown.

“…I’m kidding. Don’t make that face.” Linhardt shuffles a little, completely hiding himself beneath the blanket. “Won’t you come here? I’m getting tired just looking at you still standing.”

“Mm. Okay.” Byleth sits on the edge of the bed, making himself comfortable with what little space Linhardt has left for him. He supposes he should feel honored, that Linhardt had bothered to make space for him at all. “Um… how are you?”

Linhardt’s head pokes out from the edge of the covers, his hair spilling out onto the sheets. “How am I.”

“What will you do? About the war?”

“What a loaded question. I’d rather not answer.”

“Oh.” Byleth shifts closer, then rests his hand on Linhardt’s head without thinking—he can physically feel Linhardt stiffen, but he doesn’t push Byleth away, so he keeps his hand there. Just the feeling of soft hair under his palm is comforting enough. “Okay, then. But you’re here helping, aren’t you?”

“I… suppose.”

Byleth runs his fingers through Linhardt’s hair, a bit more clumsily than how Linhardt had done it to him. But his hair is smooth enough that Byleth doesn’t pull on any knots, and Linhardt sighs contentedly at his touch. “So isn’t that answer enough?”

Linhardt leans up in his hand, the same way the monastery cats do. “It isn’t that simple. I still don’t—what happened to your hand?”

“Hm?” Byleth blinks, already feeling sleepy. He isn’t accustomed to such constant healing like how he’s accustomed to constant fighting and training, and it leads to a new kind of exhaustion settling on his shoulders. “It’s probably the faith magic…”

“Do you take me for a fool or something—” Linhardt sits up, the blanket tumbling off to pool at his lap—he takes Byleth’s hand in his own, and only then does Byleth realize he had been using his bare, uncovered hand.

The same hand he had thrust into the fires.

“These are second-degree burns,” Linhardt murmurs, the light of a Heal spell already glowing faintly at his palms. “Normal, non-magical fire… this is almost a month old. What happened? And why didn’t you get these treated?”

“I…” Byleth swallows. He’s told no one about what happened with Flayn, and the very thought of speaking her name again makes him sick. _And what would Linhardt say?_ a voice in his head whispers. _You know how he feels about killing. He was friends with her, too._

The faith magic warms his hand, all the way up to his elbow. _Worry,_ Byleth feels, and not much else. _If I speak, if I tell him—would I feel disgust? Revulsion? Hate?_

He pulls his hand away, already missing the warmth. “It’s noth—”

“Do _not—_ ” Linhardt snatches his hand back, and the warmth flares back as intense as the look on Linhardt’s face. “Do not try to stop me,” he continues, less sharp but just as serious. “I told you before. It’s my responsibility, to heal you.”

Byleth stares down at where Linhardt’s holding his hand, the shine of faith magic suddenly near-blinding. Confusion trickles through, in that strange, indescribable link Byleth has never been able to put into words before, but Linhardt’s expression remains as carefully impassive as ever. “Sorry,” Byleth finally mumbles, looking away. “It’s just…”

“You don’t have to tell me, if you’d rather not,” Linhardt says, when Byleth trails off. “Just let me do this. The scars will probably remain… they’re too old to completely heal… but I can at least make sure it won’t worsen and affect the rest of your body.”

“Thank you.” Byleth swallows dryly. Has his voice always been able to come out so small? It’s almost pathetic. “I… I thought it was fine. The Crest of Flames activated. So I—I didn’t feel it. The pain, I mean. At least for a while.” At Linhardt’s listening nod, and the relief Byleth can feel drifting through the link, Byleth mutters, “On one of my trips. To the monastery. There was…”

The magic fades. The skin on his arm looks marginally less burnt, but the scarring remains around most of his wrist, curled around it like a snake.

“Flayn was there,” Byleth says, as fast as he can, “in the library.”

Linhardt’s hands stutter over Byleth’s, and Byleth is instantly glad he had finished the Heal spell before he spoke—he doesn’t know what he would have felt from Linhardt otherwise. “She had a lamp with her, and when I tried to escape, I knocked it over and—it fell—onto the floor, and—”

_And the screaming, the screaming, if I had just been fast enough, if I had just been able to take her with us, if I had just done more—_

“Byleth.” A hand on his own. It’s warm—Byleth doesn’t remember the last time he had felt human warmth without his gloves on. “It’s fine. It’s alright. Breathe.”

“I—” Byleth closes his eyes, bows his head, presses his thumb to the inside of Linhardt’s wrist. Something thumps rhythmically under his skin, and Byleth breathes, breathes, times his breathing to the cadence of Linhardt’s heartbeat. “I never truly understood you, until now,” he whispers. “Killing seemed so easy. But now—that—I’ve never felt like this, before. I don’t… know what to call it.”

“What? The emotion?” Linhardt asks. He keeps the arm Byleth’s holding still, but he reaches up with his other hand to stroke Byleth’s hair, gently untangling the knots.

Byleth nods. “Guilt, maybe. But it—isn’t just that, I think. There’s—some kind of sadness, but I don’t know…”

“Hmm.” Linhardt’s hand stops moving, but remains atop Byleth’s hair, light and comforting. “You don’t always have to find a name for an emotion. Sometimes it’s fine to let it be.” He pauses. “Do you want to feel something else? Your emotional link still works with faith magic, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Ah… okay.”

The sensation of a weak Heal spell starts from the crown of Byleth’s head and spreads down, to his chest and arms and stomach and legs—it’s so gentle it’s somehow overwhelming, and through it Byleth can feel a familiar emotion. That warmth, again, the one that reminds him of how sunlight feels—the one he’s only ever felt from Linhardt before, the one he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to place a name to.

Then again, perhaps that’s fine—maybe he doesn’t always have to find a name for these things. Maybe feeling them is enough.

“You should stop,” Byleth mumbles, after a while. “There’ll be a battle soon. You can’t waste magic on me.”

“It isn’t _wasting,_ but if you say so.” The Heal spell slows to a stop, and so does the warmth. When Byleth finally lifts his head to face Linhardt again, there’s an odd look on his face, as if he’s just realized something. “Tell me, Byleth,” he says, “did you feel it? That mystery emotion you told me about before.”

“Yes. Did you… figure out what it is?”

Linhardt shrugs, looking down at his hands. Unburnt, unmarred—Byleth wishes they’ll always stay that way. “Maybe,” he murmurs. “Maybe not.”

“Won’t you tell me?”

A pause. Under his thumb, Linhardt’s heart beats loud and fast. “Perhaps one day,” Linhardt answers, running his fingers down Byleth’s hair again. “When I’m sure about it, I’ll tell you then. Whether it’s a good thing or not.”

Byleth frowns. “That’s a bit ominous. It’s just an emotion, isn’t it?”

“…What a very Byleth thing to say,” Linhardt sighs, rolling his eyes. “I thought you of all people would know these are rarely ever _just_ emotions.”

Byleth is used to war.

He knows this. He is used to the battlefield, to bloodshed. He is used to watching the light in his victims’ eyes slowly fade, is used to the red that stains his clothes and drips from his sword, is used to killing and killing until there are no lives left to take.

But he is not used to his enemies having faces.

 _Enemies—_ even the word sounds wrong, used for the knights he had trained with, the monks he had greeted in the corridors, the monastery children who had played with his coat and braided what little they could of his hair. _Why kill them?_ he thinks, every second right before he drives the sword into them anyway—and when he stands above their bodies, dressed in armor or robes or street clothes— _Why kill them? Why kill? Why?_

Byleth is used to war. He knows this. But he had never properly understood it until now, when every life he takes sends flashes of pain up in his chest, like echoes of a heartbeat he never had.

“Byleth! On your left!”

He whirls around and slams a fireball into the knight’s face, barely even looking at the man—if Byleth sees another face he recognizes, he doesn’t want to know if he’d be able to fight again. The knight screams and falls, flames licking at his armor and axe. Ahead of them, a pegasus knight cries out as she topples from her mount, Bernadetta’s arrows embedded into the animal’s side and neck; a cavalryman begins to rush her, but Ferdinand hurries to her side and hauls her up onto the back of his own horse, then drives his lance into the enemy soldier’s chest.

Byleth forces himself to look away—he has to focus on his own battles, not theirs, they can handle themselves—and fights his way through the knights. They’re dwindling in number on this side, with Randolph von Bergliez (Caspar’s uncle, he hadn’t known until recently…) charging through the onslaught like he’s his own army. Rather similar to Caspar himself, really. Behind him, a dark mage reluctantly trails after him, sending Heal spells his way every now and then.

“General up ahead!” Randolph calls, turning back for only a moment before he has to block an attack from a heavily-armored knight. “A heal tile, too! On your guard!”

 _A general?_ Spies had reported Gilbert on the left flank, where Caspar, Ashe, and Dorothea had gone to join up with Ladislava, but they hadn’t mentioned a general here. Byleth looks up, catches Ferdinand’s eye, and shouts, “Fall back! Keep caution!”

Ferdinand frowns, as if about to argue, but reins his horse in to round back (Bernadetta squeaks and clings to his waist for dear life) and canter beside Byleth instead. “I did not see anyone we recognize further up ahead, but I believe the general Randolph is referring to is a Church bishop—they are dressed head to toe in all white, and I witnessed the Seraphim spell.”

“Seraphim…” A faith spell said to be cast only by those blessed by the goddess, its original purpose meant to banish demonic beasts from the earth. Byleth had never bothered to try it—considering Sothis is a part of him now, he doubts he can bless himself and be able to use the spell. Also, it seemed like too much work when he had read the specifications of it in the textbook. “Alright. Stay close. We’ll circle around and see if they have a blind spot.”

“As expected from our strategist,” Ferdinand hums.

Byleth blinks, momentarily forgetting they’re on the battlefield. “Strategist?”

“You’re our strategist, Byleth!” Bernadetta pipes up. “That’s what Edelgard always says, anyway. You and Hubert, and the professor too.”

Ferdinand shivers. “I can accept Byleth and Professor Jeralt, but please do not speak that scoundrel’s name where I can hear it. I abhor the very reminder of his existence.”

“Isn’t that a bit… much?”

“No! Have I told you about what he did to me the other day? I was arranging some weapons in the armory, minding my own business, when out of nowhere—”

Byleth coughs. The soldiers have thinned out around them, with Randolph and his mage creeping along the wall across them, but sunlight had just reflected off more armor up ahead. “Quiet. Steady.”

They both nod; Ferdinand steers his horse behind the knights’ lines of sight, while Byleth sticks close to the ground instead. The roads here are narrow, vaguely reminiscent of the marketplace just down the monastery before the battle had started, and Byleth takes advantage of the shadows to make himself as invisible as possible. Closer, closer… there are four more armored knights in front, surrounding the promised heal tile and the bishop Ferdinand had described. They’re small and slight, their robes covering everything but their hands…

Byleth blinks. _What was that?_ Had it just been the sunlight, or had those been—

An arrow flies, digging itself into a chink in one of the knights’ armor—he chokes and groans, doubling over, and Byleth takes the chance to send a jolt of thunder crack across the air to fry the vulnerable man. The too-familiar smell of burning metal fills the air, and Byleth already knows the man is done for even before the bishop’s hands sputter with failed healing magic. 

“Go!” Randolph shouts—he runs out of the corner he had hidden in, leaping into the air and swinging his axe down at one of the other knights. Armor cracks and shatters under the blade, but the knight retaliates with his lance—Byleth runs out as well, calling on a fire spell when another soldier comes near, combining it with the mire Randolph’s mage casts, melting the man into nothing—Ferdinand races out from behind, Bernadetta firing more arrows at rapid speed—

Then one of the arrows _thunks_ into the bishop’s arm, and they let out a high scream of pain—a scream Byleth has heard, over and over, every night since his last monastery visit.

“ _Stop,_ ” Byleth orders, moments before realizing he doesn’t need to—Bernadetta is staring at the bishop in horror, more at herself than anything, and Ferdinand is so distracted that one of the still-standing knights almost takes his head off.

Byleth rushes forward, dodging the bright ball of light the bishop sends his way. It explodes against a crumbling building instead, leaving a crater impact and a half-dozen pure white feathers drifting down to the ground. _Seraphim,_ he realizes—the same spell she had been readying in the library, the same spell she hadn’t had the heart to cast at all—“Flayn!” he shouts, knocking one of the advancing soldiers to the side with the Creator Sword. “Flayn, is that you?”

“Stay away from me!” the bishop—no, that voice, it’s definitely—Flayn cries, another Seraphim spell charging up in her palms. Byleth avoids it again, and it slams into an abandoned market stall. “You… Byleth! You almost… How could you? How could you do that to me?”

“I didn’t—” He swallows, readies the Creator Sword again as the knight begins to pick himself up off the ground. “I didn’t mean t—”

“My b-brother told me I almost burned to death,” Flayn sobs. Another spell, but this one is far from the same—Byleth doesn’t get out of the way fast enough, and the tail end of the Nosferatu spell catches him in the leg. The effect is immediate—he stumbles and trips, tumbling onto the bloodstained ground, as energy drains out of him. “Why? Why did you do that? Byleth!”

 _I didn’t mean to,_ he wants to say, to shout, to scream until his throat grows raw from repetition. _I didn’t mean to, I tried to help you, I wanted to go back, I didn’t mean to. I could never, Flayn, I could never do that to you—_

And yet, somehow, Byleth already knows none of that would help. Flayn wouldn’t believe him. He wouldn’t believe himself. What had that dark mage said, those weeks ago? _Personal relations mean nothing on the battlefield._

They’re right. Byleth knows that. And yet, and yet, and _yet—_

The glow of another spell, this one almost certainly Seraphim again, appears in the corner of his eye—Byleth scrambles to his feet and sidesteps it right before it hits, sending him skidding across the ground and suddenly much closer to Flayn. She screams and throws her hands up, the familiar hiss of a Wind spell starting up—Byleth sweeps it away with the Creator Sword, finding some wind much less threatening after everything else she’s cast, but the force of the action blows her robe hood off of her head.

She flinches and throws her hood back up, obscuring her face again, but Byleth stumbles back—he’d seen enough, seen the angry red burns across her once-unblemished face.

Her shoulders tremble when she looks back up at him. “Did you see?” she cries. “Did you see what you did to me?”

“Flayn—”

“Enough! I shall—I shall never trust you again!” Her palms glow, and logically—logically, Byleth knows he should move, should get out of the way before the Seraphim spell blows a crater in his face, should counterattack with the sword, with a spell, with anything, should do _something—_

_Personal relations mean nothing on the battlefield—_

_Would you do it? Kill someone you know, if it came down between their life or yours—_

He closes his eyes—

—and then the white light stutters to a stop. Something falls to the ground with a heavy _thump._

When Byleth opens his eyes again, Ferdinand stands over Flayn, arrows sticking out of her back, kneeling on the ground and struggling to move. Behind him is Bernadetta, her entire person shaking so hard she almost drops her bow. “I did not know you were one to hesitate, Byleth,” Ferdinand says, very quietly. “But I suppose we all did, when we realized…”

“No, I… I must protect… Garreg Mach,” Flayn gasps, placing her shaking hands over the arrows. Her blood drips and pools onto the ground, looking almost green in the sunlight. “Must protect… everyone…”

“ _Flayn!_ ” someone yells—Byleth knows who it is without having to look up, and he bolts into a relatively hidden corner while Bernadetta swings herself atop Ferdinand’s horse as they gallop further into the battlefield. Seteth makes to swoop down from atop, but his wyvern screeches and lists to the side, a barrage of arrows striking its left wing. He circles the skies instead, shouting, “Retreat while you still can, Flayn, I beg you!”

Flayn sniffs, pushing herself up to trembling feet and dislodging her hood in the process. The burns on her face extend down to below her neck, from what little Byleth can see, and they’re far more serious than his own are. “U… Understood! Please, stay safe, F—Brother!”

Then she turns and runs out of the field, scrubbing at her eyes with magic-burnt hands. Something clatters to the ground behind her, but she makes no move to double back and retrieve it. Above head, Seteth shouts a battle cry and dives back down to the ground, disappearing behind the tops of buildings.

“Hey! Byleth, right?” Randolph’s voice calls—he shuffles out from behind a copse of trees he had been hiding behind, the exhausted-looking mage dragging themselves out as well. “That was a close one, huh? Hey, here, that girl dropped this.”

He hands over some sort of elaborate staff, with two golden snakes entwined around its handle and its head topped with a red jewel framed by a pair of ornate wings. Byleth gingerly takes it in hand, running a finger down the handle—he can feel it thrum with magical energy, but none that he himself can use. Spotting the mage standing sullenly behind Randolph, Byleth calls, “Hello. Er, could you warp this back to the entrance, the way we came? Where the healers are?”

The mage gives him a gaze steeped in suspicion. “Why?”

“This looks like a healing staff. They might find it more helpful right now.” On reflex, Byleth glances down at the ring on his finger. Still green. Not red. Logically he knows there’s little danger that will come the healers’ way, considering their main force is taking down the Church’s troops before they can even come close to the makeshift infirmary, but—Byleth isn’t used to not having Linhardt with him on the battlefield, after everything.

The mage sighs. “Fine.” They step forward and touch the staff with one gloved finger—it disappears in a brief flash of darkness, and the mage instantly steps back again, standing just behind an amused-looking Randolph. “There. It should be on one of the tables—one of them will find it.”

Byleth manages a strained smile. It feels more like a barely-there upwards quirk of his lips than anything, but it’s something. “Thank you. Alright,” he says, looking back at Randolph, “let’s go—”

An high-pitched shriek pierces the air like the crack of ballista. Byleth turns so fast he almost cracks his neck— _Bernadetta._

He doesn’t wait for Randolph or the mage, racing ahead through the path he had seen Ferdinand and Bernadetta take, already readying a Divine Pulse behind his eyes—there are fallen soldiers littering the area, and a gateway up ahead where the scream must have come from—

“Bernadetta! Calm yourself!” Byleth hears Ferdinand say, followed by the thumping of horse hooves against cobblestone. “You—stay back, villain! Come not one step closer!”

The creak of armor. A different horse, scraping restlessly at the ground. “We are here to lend the Empire our strength,” a voice says, and—

Byleth skids to a halt.

In front of him looms a figure he has only ever seen a handful of times before, one of those being deep in an underground dungeon while he had bled his chest out on the cold floor. The glimmer of a deep black scythe—the gleam of dark red eyes—and of course that skull-like _mask,_ complete with annoyingly dramatic curving horns.

Byleth almost raises his sword right then and there, before he notices the harried-looking Imperial soldier beside him. “We’re allies!” the soldier cries, waving their arms around in as placating a gesture as possible. “Swear! He won’t hurt anyone! I mean, well, he won’t hurt _you,_ that is, but—oh, you know what I mean!”

The Death Knight turns to face Byleth, very slowly. “It is you,” he says, voice distorted behind the mask. “I see… You have changed.”

Byleth says nothing.

“I will see you when this is done,” the Death Knight continues, lifting his scythe beside him. “It will be much more satisfying to kill you then.”

“ _No!_ ” the Imperial soldier wails. “Didn’t you hear a _single_ thing Her Majesty said!”

The Death Knight tugs on the reins of his horse, and it gallops off further into the monastery, completely leaving his colleague behind. The soldier stares after his rapidly-retreating form, shocked into silence.

Randolph’s mage comes up to pat the soldier’s shoulder as reassuringly as possible, although the mage being almost an entire head shorter makes this difficult. “Hey, if you start now, you can still catch up with him, can’t you?”

“That’s it,” the soldier sulks. “I knew it… I knew Her Majesty assigning me to be Sir Jeritza’s ally for this was too good to be true…”

Ferdinand still looks wary, but he lowers his lance and guides his horse to turn towards the direction the Death Knight had taken. “He… He is our ally, then? Of sorts?”

The soldier jumps back to attention. “T-That’s what I’ve been saying!”

“Ah. Alright. Bernadetta, you may stop clinging to me now. He is of no danger to us.”

Bernadetta hesitantly lifts her face from where she had buried it in Ferdinand’s back. “R-Really? Him? We’re friends with _that_ guy?”

“Not by choice, I assure you.”

Randolph scratches the back of his neck. Blood drips from the blade of his axe. “We were informed reinforcements were on their way. Never thought it’d be someone like him, though… Well, anyway, any further up ahead and we’ll be heading into the inner sanctum of this place. The Archbishop is probably in there.”

Ferdinand frowns uncertainly. “Lady Rhea… It is still difficult to believe we must battle her.”

“Better start getting used to it, then,” the mage grumbles. “She clearly already has.”

Byleth stays quiet, staring ahead in one of the gateways leading inside. There must have been knights guarding there, but they’re gone now, possibly driven away and killed elsewhere. _The Archbishop… Rhea._ It doesn’t feel terribly long ago when they had first seen her turn into that dragon at the Holy Tomb, when she had been perfectly ready to kill them all.

 _Including Father,_ he remembers, and feels his grip tighten on the Creator Sword.

The six of them venture further inside together, sticking to the walls to avoid unnecessary combat—there are only a scant few soldiers and knights inside, all of them looking worse for wear. A lone cleric rushes back and forth, Heal and Physic spells flying from their singed palms. “Looks good,” Randolph mutters.

Bernadetta tugs on Ferdinand’s sleeve. “Do you… hear that?”

“Hear what?” Ferdinand asks, looking distracted—he had tethered his horse outside, just loose enough that it could break away if it needed to run, and he’s been looking over his shoulder for the past several minutes.

“It’s from outside. It sounds like… I don’t know… a machine?”

 _A machine…?_ Byleth strains his ears, then presses against the wall when he hears it—whirring gears, clanking steel. The low hum of machinery. “I hear it,” he says. “Though I’ve no idea what it could b—”

The wall shatters above them. Debris rains down. Someone’s scream is cut suddenly, brutally short.

Byleth breathes, in and out, and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the wall is whole, and this time he hears it—the clank-whirr right before he shoves everyone as far away from the wall as possible, and a giant mechanical arm smashes the wall into pieces from outside.

“A golem!” Randolph shouts over the ruckus—he brandishes his axe again, pushing his mage behind him. “Their weak spot is the energy core in the center!”

 _Energy core—_ that must be the flashing light in the golem’s chest area, if Byleth were to liken it to a chest. He readies his magic, ready to cast a Thunder spell, but he loses his focus when a knight charges him from the right, swinging a lance—Byleth blocks it with the Creator Sword, takes the extra second to wrap the whip-blade around the man’s neck and squeeze the life out of him—

The golem beeps, whirrs, clanks, and its arms come crashing down again. Ferdinand and the Imperial soldier run out of the way—they only have a lance and a sword each, without any throwable weapons to target the golem’s core with, and Bernadetta is too busy fleeing from three different Church knights to aim for the golem. Byleth curses, driving his sword into another soldier’s chest. With too many enemy knights around to distract them from the golem, they’ll never be able to take it down.

He sends a plume of fire towards one of the knights chasing after Bernadetta, somewhat surprised when it explodes on impact and scorches the area around the man. _Bolganone?_ It looks more like a failed attempt on the spell, but he’s not complaining. “Bernadetta!” Byleth shouts, casting another Fire spell—this one comes out relatively normal, to his disappointment. “Focus on the golem! Its core!”

“T- _That?_ ” Bernadetta squeaks, nocking an arrow with shaky hands. “I c-can’t even… oh, whatever!” she screams, then kicks an approaching knight in the face while simultaneously firing her arrow.

It lands dead center, and the golem stutters, its arms hovering just above Randolph and the Church cleric he had just taken down. It doesn’t pause for long, immediately swinging its arms down again after a second, but it’s enough time for Randolph to get out of the way and leave the healer’s bleeding body behind to be crushed by the golem instead. Byleth nods when Bernadetta shoots him an unsure look. “Good,” he shouts; “again! We’ll take care of the rest!”

“A-Ah… Okay!”

There’s another golem outside, visible only when Bernadetta fires her last arrow and the energy core shatters, the golem instantly going perfectly still and silent—they all move back to hide behind the rubble, but the other golem is as immobile as the one they’d just taken down. Then from behind it comes a panting Leonie, her lance bent in a way that would make the blacksmith back at the base camp tear their hair out in frustration, followed by—

“Father!” Byleth calls, scrambling out from the wreckage and peering out of the hole in the wall. Father looks up, eyes wide in surprise. “Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah—yeah, kid, we’re good,” Father shouts back. “How’d you get in there so fast—damn it, we can’t even get in now that this chunk of metal is in the way. Listen, we just pushed Seteth hard enough to make him retreat, so no one’s stopping you from Lady Rhea up ahead. Don’t let your guard down, and definitely take her out before she turns into that thing again!”

 _That thing—_ only Father could refer to Rhea’s majestic dragon form as something as simple as that, Byleth supposes. “Understood,” he says. “Please be safe. You too, Leonie.”

When he turns back around, Ferdinand has just pulled his lance out of a knight’s chest, sending blood spurting weakly out of the wound. He doesn’t recoil as he used to, and Bernadetta doesn’t look away as she used to either. “We advance on the Archbishop, then?” he asks, flicking the blood off the spearhead.

Byleth nods. “If we rush her from all sides, it will be easier to overpower her.”

Bernadetta sniffs. “But if she turns into that b-big dragon again…”

“We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t,” Randolph says decisively. “Come on. We might be able to meet up with others before we reach her.”

They run into the Death Knight further up ahead, standing over one of the monastery children—Cyril, Byleth remembers. He’s barely breathing, his wyvern limp and bleeding on the ground beside him, while the Death Knight’s scythe drips with red. He turns to look at them, cocking his head slightly. “Slow.”

The Imperial soldier bristles. “That’s unfair! You were on a _horse!_ ”

Cyril groans, lifting his axe with a trembling arm. The Death Knight doesn’t bother moving—Cyril’s swing misses all the same. “I…” he coughs. “I gotta… kill you…”

The Death Knight _hm_ s vaguely. “Pathetic,” he says blandly, then lifts his scythe. Bernadetta stifles a small sound and turns away; Ferdinand closes his eyes, grip hard around his lance.

He swings his scythe—

And hits a glowing sword head-on, Catherine glaring up at him from beneath Thunderbrand. “Don’t you touch another one of our people!” she yells, pushing him back—the Death Knight says nothing, only backs away then retaliates with another downwards strike. Sparks fly from between the two blades.

Then Catherine’s gaze flicks up to meet Byleth’s, and her eyes narrow even further in fury Byleth had never been on the opposing end of, until now. “ _You,_ ” she snarls, breaking away from the Death Knight to charge at him; Byleth only barely gets the Creator Sword up in time to block Thunderbrand. “Lady Rhea trusted you. _I_ trusted you!”

“I—” Byleth swallows, pushing her back as hard as he can. She skids back with a grunt, but this hardly stops her from charging again—this time she strikes from below, giving Byleth no time to adjust his grip on the sword. Thunderbrand cuts a diagonal gash across his chest to his shoulder, and it takes him a moment to realize the pained scream he had heard was from himself.

“Well?” Catherine snaps, going for another attack. Byleth reaches up to block it, but she kicks him and sends him toppling over onto his back, easy enough for Catherine to dig her heel into his stomach. “What is it? Have anything to say for yourself?”

 _You don’t understand,_ Byleth wants to say— _the Archbishop isn’t who you think she is, the Archbishop neglected her people and experimented on children, why can’t you see past your own beliefs—_ but what would saying any of that do? Right now he can barely breathe, can barely raise his sword without feeling agonizing pain surge through his entire upper body.

Above him, Catherine curls her lips in disdain. “Nothing,” she spits. “Just as I thought.” She lifts her sword, and Byleth squeezes his eyes shut, tries terribly to gather enough focus for a Divine Pulse, but everything _hurts—_

Midnight black. Catherine curses. The Death Knight pushes her back, his scythe creaking beneath Thunderbrand’s sparking blade. “ _I_ will be the one to kill him,” he hisses. “Not some weakling.”

Byleth groans, struggling to his feet. Healing magic suffuses his chest—it’s so different from how Linhardt’s or Dorothea’s feels that he almost thinks it’s another enemy attack before he catches sight of the dark mage above him, brow furrowed and shining with sweat. _Frustration,_ Byleth feels. _Exhaustion._ Nothing surprising, really. “Can you walk?” the mage barks.

“I—I think—”

“Hurry!” Randolph urges, helping him to his feet. “Get away while the Death Knight keeps her busy—let’s go! Come on!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Byleth grumbles, steadying himself on a nearby wall—the wound on his chest still stings with pain, but the bleeding has at least stopped—but when he looks up, he realizes he’s not the one Randolph’s speaking to. The Imperial soldier is at the Death Knight’s side, his own sword at the ready as Catherine picks herself back up and glares at him.

Randolph swears up a storm. “Hey! You—soldier! Get back here, come on!”

“I—I’m meant to be at Sir Jeritza’s side!” the soldier yells back. “Hurry and go! We’ll catch up!”

“Don’t be an idiot—”

Byleth grits his teeth and grabs Randolph’s arm, tugging him forward. “Let’s go. He won’t leave.”

“What? Are you serious?” Randolph shouts; in that moment he looks painfully similar to Caspar, the furrowed brow and stubborn frown. “No! I know the Death Knight can take it, but that man—he’s—we can’t leave him!”

“We have to _go,_ ” Byleth shouts, pulling him away from the three. Catherine yells as she rushes the Imperial soldier, and—and Byleth doesn’t know if looking away makes him a coward, but he looks away all the same, because he doesn’t want to feel the full force of the guilt threatening to spill over the edge. He tugs on Randolph’s arm hard enough that the man is forced to follow, and they trudge after Ferdinand, Bernadetta, and the dark mage deeper into the inner sanctum.

 _I suppose you must already have decided which one among you all is the most acceptable death,_ Byleth hears Solon whisper in his ear. He shakes his head but the thought slithers through his mind, coiling around the folds of his brain.

The mage stares at them, unblinking. “Where’s…”

Randolph shakes his head. “Let’s… Let’s keep going. They’ll catch up.”

 _Do you ever wonder why so many of these soldiers never seem to value their own lives?_ Byleth hears Linhardt ask him as they continue moving, their number down by one. His voice had been soft and low, Byleth remembers, tinged with years-old confusion. _Why do we fight until we die?_ _Why do we kill without hesitation?_

Byleth looks down, absently twisting the ring around his finger. Still as green as ever. He knows he should be glad Linhardt is back there with the rest of the healers rather than risking his life here, but the foreign feeling of the mage’s Heal spell has only left him missing Linhardt’s presence even more—

The gem flickers. Byleth blinks down. _Had that just been the light?_ But then—

He blinks again. It flashes bright red, and doesn’t return to green.

There’s hardly any time to think about it—the floor in front of them erupts into fiery explosion, sending Ferdinand and Bernadetta stumbling back, but more streams of fire descend from the sky like the goddess’ judgment. They scatter at Randolph’s order, ducking behind debris and rubble—except for Byleth, who can’t bring himself to move. _Red—_ Linhardt’s in danger. But how—could the Church forces have broken through and begun attacking their healers at the entrance? Then he has to go back, he has to—

“You!” an all-too familiar voice shouts. Byleth jerks, looking up—Rhea hovers from above, wielding a shining azure sword in one hand and snaking ropes of fire in the other. “So you dare to return to attack the people who so trusted you… Are you not ashamed of yourself, you traitor? After you set fire to the library with Flayn still inside!”

More Knights of Seiros emerge from hidden alcoves and entrances, moving into a vaguely familiar battalion formation—Byleth throws himself out of the way, somehow managing to avoid Rhea’s rapid Fire spells. Ferdinand parries an attack from a soldier, while Bernadetta, with the few arrows she had managed to salvage from corpses, hastily aims at approaching enemies. When Rhea sees them, her gaze darkens in distaste. “So you have sullied yourselves by joining with the rebels… I hope you came prepared to breathe your last.”

She aims her palm at them, and Byleth stares in horror as blue sparks begin to crackle before her. _Thoron? No…_ He clambers up a small pile of rubble as fast as he can, ignoring the knights swiping at his heels. The words from his textbook flash briefly in his mind’s eye: _a sweltering flame that reduces all to ash—_

Byleth leaps off the rubble, extending the Creator Sword. For a few seconds, he feels entirely weightless, the whip blade moving in slow-motion, cutting through the very air as it hums with power and _cracks_ against Rhea’s wrist.

The scream that tears its way out of her mouth is downright monstrous. Byleth casts a hasty Wind spell to soften his fall and tumbles onto the ground just as blood—the same thick green blood from before—lands on his cheek and arm, warm and viscous. “ _You worthless piece of garbage!_ ” Rhea screeches. He hadn’t sliced her entire hand off, unfortunately—blood gushes out from a gash on her wrist instead, looking nearly bone-deep. “After I gave you a home! After I saved your _life!_ ”

Byleth tenses. Randolph is busy fighting off a number of knights by himself, the dark mage huddled behind some debris, clutching their leg and sending stuttering healing spells his way whenever they can. He readies the Creator Sword again, feeling its excitement pulse through him.

Rhea brandishes her own sword, pointing it straight at Byleth’s face, and the Creator Sword seems to react as well, as if jumping at the chance for combat. “Did you never wonder why the Crest of Flames acts as it does? It restores your health and numbs pain, does it not?” she sneers. “Yet your heart does not beat! Because you are no human being. No—you are not even _alive._ ”

Something like fire runs down his spine, races through his arms. _Not even alive. Not even…_

“The Crest of Flames tries desperately to pretend you are, to heal your wounds and grant you strength, but it cannot change the fact that you live on a borrowed life force—one _I_ gave to you! And this is how you _repay me!_ ”

She fires a spell before Byleth can react—blue-white flames soar through the skies, smashing a crater into the ground. The impact is as loud as a thunderclap, and Byleth sinks to his knees, trying desperately to ignore the ringing in his ears— _not alive, not alive, but how could that be…_ no, he shouldn’t be focusing on this, Rhea’s only trying to distract him, he shouldn’t…

And yet—if he isn’t alive, then how is he here—if he is alive, then how does his heart not beat?

“Did you not know, sweet child?” Rhea simpers. Her palms glow with more of the same blue sparks, already beginning to form into the vague shape of Agnea’s Arrows. “As you are now, you are nothing but a body moving to the puppeteer’s strings. And when those strings snap… I shall be there to watch you fall!”

 _If I’m not alive—_ Byleth grabs the Creator Sword, slices through the fires Rhea sends his way as the blade glows bright red. _If I’m not alive—then I shouldn’t be able to die, right?_

He looks down, half on instinct. The ring still flashes red.

Byleth lifts his gaze back up, meeting Rhea’s eyes with his own defiant ones. “I never asked to be saved.”

Fire burns in her hands, hot enough that he can feel the heat of it from here, deadly searing. “Ungrateful traitor to the goddess. If you are truly so uncaring of your half-life, then allow me to take back what is rightfully mine!”

She throws her head back and lets out a guttural roar—Byleth catches Bernadetta’s eye and shouts, “Get out of here! It’s dangerous!”

“What? No! B-Byleth, we can’t just leave you!” she cries, holding her bow like she would an axe. “L-Lady Rhea is crazy strong, isn’t she? We have to take her on together, or else…!”

Byleth shakes his head and runs over to her, looking behind him to see Rhea’s body begin to glow. Her transformation will take at least another few seconds, enough time for Byleth to say, “Bernadetta, I need you to get the others and lead them away from here. Please. I’m counting on you.”

“Y-You’re…?” She stares up at him, eyes wide and watery. “But Byleth, you’re… I c-can’t…”

“You _can._ You’re Bernadetta. So I know you can. And you don’t have to worry about me.” Byleth touches her wrist, feather-light enough that she won’t bolt away from him like she does with all forms of physical contact. “I’ll catch up after I defeat her.”

Bernadetta sniffles and presses the balls of her palms to her eyelids, then nods, staring fixedly at the ground. “You have to come back, okay?” she cries. “I—I’ll never forgive myself if you don’t!”

Then she turns around and hurries over to Ferdinand, and Byleth looks back up at Rhea. He’d rather not watch them all leave.

Wings unfold from behind her glowing form, and a long tail whips out to crash against a building and send it crumbling to pieces. With another roar, the Immaculate One hovers in the air, her wings beating hard enough to send Byleth stumbling back from the wind. “Die by my hand, useless filth,” she growls, fire licking her fangs and jaw as it spills from her mouth and incinerates the ground before her.

Byleth steadies himself, breathes in, breathes out. He has to believe the ring is flashing red because Rhea has the capacity to raze the entire army to ashes. If he doesn’t stop her now… if he doesn’t get her away from Linhardt…

He lifts the Creator Sword and charges.

The battle is a blur, his instincts largely taking over—strike here, aim there, cast magic when his palms don’t sting from overuse, dodge and roll out of the way. Rhea makes for an easy target considering her size, but the fires and beams of pure energy she shoots from her mouth are far more lethal than any fire magic Byleth’s encountered before—it singes his hair, his coat, nearly burns off his other glove before the Creator Sword sweeps the flames away. He ducks under a swipe of her claw, slashes at the underside of her belly, catches his breath after narrowly avoiding another stream of fire…

Byleth can’t keep going on like this. He knows that. But what other choice does he have? He draws his sword again, flicks off the green blood beginning to congeal on its blade, and—

“—leth! Byleth, you idiot!”

His grip loosens. “Lin…?”

Pain bursts across his upper back, and Byleth stumbles onto the ground, hastily balancing himself on the Creator Sword to keep standing—behind him Rhea growls lowly, and he turns around in time to see her raise her front leg again, his blood dripping from shining white claws. “How pitiful,” she spits. “You are just another failure for me to regret.”

She lowers her claws—but fire scorches her hide, just enough to distract her and give Byleth time to scramble out of the way, trailing blood behind him. Linhardt stands at one of the entryways, shaking hands thrust out before him, staring up at the Immaculate One with a mix of fear and fascination on his face.

Vaguely, Byleth notes the red flashing on Linhardt’s finger—his ring, Byleth realizes. Had he run out here because he had thought Byleth was in danger, too?

“What are you doing? Trying to face the Archbishop by yourself!” Linhardt shouts—he casts another Fire spell, but this does little to deter Rhea’s advance now that the element of surprise is out of his arsenal. He curses and backs away, sending a Physic spell towards Byleth instead. The warmth of healing magic has never felt as welcome as now. “Hurry and move! We have to get out of here!”

“Lin—” Byleth coughs, pushing himself up with the Creator Sword and just barely avoiding Rhea’s snapping jaws. “Linhardt, I’ll be fine, I—”

“What? No, you won’t be _fine,_ you’ll—”

Byleth leaps towards Linhardt and tackles him to the ground, lying flat on top of him as a stream of fire singes the ends of Byleth’s hair once again. Rhea snarls from behind. “So many little ants to crush… I wonder which one will struggle more.”

“What on Earth is she saying?” Linhardt grumbles, running his hands down Byleth’s arms and chest. Byleth leans into the touch for as long as he can, savoring the warmth of sunlight and hot tea. “Byleth, don’t be a fool and hurry back. The castle’s falling apart—any longer and we risk becoming part of the rubble—”

“I—” Byleth swallows, staring at a spot somewhere beneath Linhardt’s left eye. He had felt so brave, so ready to take on the Immaculate One by himself, because how can he die if he were never alive to begin with—but Linhardt just being here makes it so painfully hard to give up the life he knows he had been living. _What use is a heart that does not beat?_ he wants to ask, and yet—

He blinks. Something is wrong. He turns around, sees Rhea drawing herself up for another energy beam, but more than that—

Byleth reaches up, touches the back of his neck. It’s bare. The dip of his chest is empty.

Father’s engagement ring is gone.

 _No._ Byleth dives back out, ignoring Linhardt’s surprised shout, and scours the ground. Nothing but wreckage and corpses and weapons, nothing but the evidence of war— _no, no, it can’t be, I can’t have lost it, I can’t—_

The Immaculate One howls. Except Byleth can barely bring himself to care, because— _there!_ A sparkle of violet, half-buried beneath the arm of a fallen soldier—he sprints towards it, reaching out, _so close, so close—_

“ _Byleth!_ ”

And then—red.

Byleth is made briefly aware he is flying—or something like that, because there is nothing beneath his feet, and yet he moves through the air. Pain sparks to life all along his entire body, only to be smothered by a sudden glow. _The Crest of Flames,_ Byleth sees, its emblem hovering above his chest for a few fleeting moments before disappearing. He flexes his fingers, but there is no cold metal there, no violet ring to clutch tight against his chest.

Byleth is made suddenly aware he is not flying. He is falling. Falling—falling—falling with the air screaming in his ears, falling with no end in sight.

He looks up. In that moment there is no Rhea, no Immaculate One, not even the crumbling castle, only Linhardt clinging to the edge of the cliff, lips forming to shout his name. There is desperation written in the furrow of his brow, and Byleth opens his own mouth to respond.

If he speaks, he hears nothing. He reaches out, stretches his arm—

But he is falling, falling still, and Linhardt’s face disappears from view.

Somewhere in the distance, the castle falls along with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: post-timeskip :)


	18. ethereal moon — “i missed you.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his dreams, he lies in a shallow pool of water. It is cold. Beside him is the Sword of the Creator, embedded in the ground. Above him is a tree, large and old—its roots are thick, snaking over the grass, dipping into the water.
> 
> Sothis cradles his head in her lap, singing a song he cannot understand the words of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[oh, hurry back, hurry back… don’t take it away from me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T73WhWTawCE) _
> 
> another 12am update because a very kind donor (now commissioner) dropped by ❤  
> anyway, post-timeskip starts now! this, of course, means things will slowly start deviating a little further from the T rating (but not by much), and some minor character death. please enjoy!!

In his dreams, he lies in a shallow pool of water. It is cold. Beside him is the Sword of the Creator, embedded in the ground. Above him is a tree, large and old—its roots are thick, snaking over the grass, dipping into the water.

Sothis cradles his head in her lap, singing a song he cannot understand the words of.

“So you awake,” she says, when she looks down to meet his eyes. She looks uncharacteristically serene, almost like the revered goddess she is meant to be. “It has been a while, has it not.”

“You…” Byleth stares at her. The sky above them is covered by a canopy of leaves, and the only light in the area comes from the glowing water they are dipped in. “You’re here.”

“Yes. Or, rather— _you_ are here, with me.” She brushes her thumb over his forehead, and her finger comes away slick and red with blood. “You must be confused. What do you last remember?”

Byleth frowns. “I… I was falling…” But everything feels slow, as if he’d left his senses behind somewhere deep underwater. There had been a great white beast… a beam of energy charging from its mouth… and—

He claps a hand to the dip of his chest. It’s empty. “The ring,” he breathes. “I… I lost it.”

Sothis huffs, and just like that, whatever serene appearance she had falls away. “Yes, you did! I warned you, all those months ago, that the string would break and that you’d better be careful with it, but what did you do? Predictably, not take my advice! I have no idea what I was expecting from you.”

Byleth leans back, his head just atop the surface of the water. “Sorry.”

“I see you are just as terrible with apologies as I remember.”

“Am I…” Byleth stares up at her. Everything is the same—the same green eyes, the same pointed ears, the same teasing smile. “Am I dead?”

She sweeps his hair—huh, has it always been that long—out of his eyes and shakes her head down at him. “No. Only resting. You suffered quite some damage from that battle—why, you came so close to death itself that you might as well be dead, if only for a short while. But…” Sothis looks up at the tree leaves, so thickly clumped together that no sunlight filters through. “You have rested long enough, I believe. It is time for you to wake—in your own world.”

“But—” He stares up at her, at the curve of her cheek and the arch of her brows, small details he thought he would never see again. “You can’t come back?”

Sothis’ eyes soften. “No, my friend. I have seen everything, now, from the ends of the past to the ends of the future, and you will not need me with you on the path you shall take.”

“No, I…” Byleth sits up to face her properly; like this, she looks small again, just the girl in his head rather than the progenitor god. “I don’t… I can’t be without you again.”

She turns away with a short, sad laugh. “I suppose. Not three moons without me and you almost died. But… no. It is not meant to be. You will walk through this life without me, Byleth.”

Byleth swallows. “But I missed you. I don’t want both of us to be alone again.”

“Listen to yourself! I have never been alone. I am always with you. And you are hardly alone either.” She tilts her head a little, and her hair spreads out on the surface of the pool, tinging the water’s glow with a faint green. “You have Father, do you not? Edelgard, too. The rest of the Black Eagles… and let us not forget darling Linhardt.”

“Linhardt…” Byleth looks down at his hand. The ring is there, blinking between bright red and mint green. “He’s… I have to…”

“I know. Which is why you must go.” She touches the water, and its glow intensifies until Byleth has to squeeze his eyes shut. “Goodbye, my friend. If all goes well, you will not see me again.”

“Sothis—” Byleth coughs. Wetness trickles down his chin—blood? It’s only now that he realizes how much his body _aches,_ as if from the injuries of that battle, against the Immaculate One—“Sothis, wait—”

The phantom touch of fingers on his cheek, the vision of a smile—and then the light, overtaking everything.

“Hey! Think he’s waking up, boys!”

The first thing Byleth registers is that everything is dark. The second is that there is, for the second time in his life, hair in his mouth.

He spits out a mouthful of long strands before even opening his eyes, groaning when the third thing he registers is that his mouth is terribly, disgustingly dry. Thumping footfalls echo around him, and Byleth reluctantly cracks his eyes open.

A scruffy, muddied face peers down at him, entirely too close for comfort.

Byleth immediately closes his eyes.

“What’s up with him? He just ignored me! Hey, you totally just ignored me right now, didn’t you!?”

Byleth tries to move his arms, but they’re tied securely behind his back. Not too much of a problem—he summons a flicker of fire to steadily burn the old rope around his wrists, and only then looks back up at the bandit standing before him. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“That’s _our_ question.” The bandit jabs a finger to his chest, and Byleth suppresses the visceral urge to jerk back. “We found you floating on the damn river like a piece of driftwood with stupid-lookin’ hair!”

 _Stupid-looking…_ If this hadn’t been personal before, it definitely is now.

“A _rich_ piece of driftwood, that’s for sure,” another bandit pipes up from behind the first one. In his hands are Athame, the Creator Sword, and—Byleth growls—Linhardt’s prayer ring. “These will net us a dozen sacks of gold, _each!”_

They hadn’t bothered with binding his legs, so Byleth stands, ignoring the smatter of sunspots in his vision. “Get your hands off of those.”

The first bandit snorts. “Get a load of yourself—what can you do? Throw a punch like that? Yeah, I’d like to see you tr—”

Byleth flexes his arms, tosses the rope to the ground, and swings a fist. It connects. The bandit’s nose crunches audibly.

The second bandit stares at him in horror.

“What?” Byleth asks, above the first bandit’s pained wailing. “He _asked._ ”

“I—” The bandit backs away slowly, still holding onto Byleth’s weapons and ring, then whirls around and runs away entirely. “I’m outta here, damn it!”

The first bandit scrambles to his feet, still holding on to his profusely bleeding nose, and stumbles after him. “Hold on, jackass! Wait for me!”

Byleth scowls but lets them go, stretching his arms and legs again—they’re awfully sore, as if he hasn’t used them in years. He scans his surroundings first: it looks like a dump site, filled mostly with piles of trash and garbage, and what look like makeshift settlements. He flicks his wrist—a crackle of electricity lights up his palm. The pain he can vaguely remember from his dreams has gone, replaced by only a dull ache in his back. Everything is still the same, then.

It’s only when he moves that he sees exactly what _has_ changed, which he learns by tripping and falling face-first into the dirt.

Byleth picks himself up with a groan, only to nearly trip again when something pulls his head back down to the ground. It’s his _hair,_ he realizes, grabbing a fistful of the mint green strands. The _long_ mint green strands. When he shakily stands up, this time without losing his balance for the third time, he stares wordlessly down at the full length of his hair—it _pools_ at his feet, looking shiny and pristine despite lying in the dirt.

 _Okay,_ he thinks to himself, carefully sweeping the curtain of hair behind him and tentatively taking some unsteady steps forward, _this is new._

There isn’t more time to analyze this change, unfortunately, because three bandits storm out from behind a heap of trash and Byleth has to pretend he hadn’t just been recovering from his hair being several times longer than he remembers it being. “There! That’s the guy!” one of them shouts, pointing his jagged sword at Byleth, who just stands there and blinks stupidly. “Alright, beat him down! Someone’s bound to want him at the market!”

 _The market?_ Byleth almost repeats, but then the bandits are already rushing him, and he has no choice but to fling his hands out and cast Fire—or, no, _Bolganone,_ because it explodes outwards when it hits the man in the center. The spell leaves both his palms and the bodies smoking.

Still, he can already see more men coming out from the sides and corners, some of them firing arrows that nick Byleth’s shoulders and sides. He curses—they’re too far to accurately hit with any of the spells he knows, and the bandits are already beginning to corner him against the end of the garbage dump. One of them—the one who had spoken earlier—steps forward. “Give it up, pretty boy,” he sneers, swinging his sword—it’s too close to avoid and nicks Byleth’s arm, and Byleth hisses in pain. It stings far too much to be a regular blade—poison? “Come on now. If you give up quietly, we’ll let you off easy.”

Definitely poison—Byleth’s only felt this a few times, and it’s always been this way, dizzying and numbing and slowing his thoughts. “Stay away,” he manages, lifting his arms again. Fire sparks to life, and Byleth dearly hopes they can’t tell the difference between the sparks of a burgeoning spell and the sparks of a failed one.

Unfortunately, they do, because the bandit steps forward again, his lips curling into a smug grin that says he already knows he’s won. “So we’re gonna play that game, huh? Alright. Just know that we gave you a ch—”

Byleth throws a fireball at his face, at the same time an arrow whistles through the air to _thunk_ into the back of the man’s head.

His first thought is, _Wow, their archers have horrible aim._ Then the bandit falls forward, revealing the person standing behind him, and Byleth’s second thought is, _Oh. That’s_ my _archer._

“So you’re the bandits causing trouble here!” someone yells, their voice much deeper than Byleth last remembers it being. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, barging into this town when it’s right beside the monastery!”

“C-Caspar! N-Not too much, they outnumber us a dozen to two… wait!” someone else squeaks. “Is… Is that…?”

The remaining bandits curse and scatter to the winds, too fast to take down, and they disappear into whatever hiding places they had dug out for themselves in the garbage dump. Byleth, for his part, can’t bring himself to care at the moment—he leans back against a broken table and places a shaking hand over the cut on his arm, willing the faith magic to spark to life. But nothing—belatedly he remembers that faith magic doesn’t work on the owner, but who had been the one to tell him that, again? Had he just assumed it, because it had never worked for him…?

“Byleth!” Caspar shouts, almost knocking the table (and Byleth) over with how fast he runs. Byleth can’t help but stare—Caspar used to be an entire head shorter than him, and now Byleth barely even has to look down anymore. “No way, it _is_ you! But—where’ve you _been?_ This whole time? Were you just, what, holed up in this dumpster or something—wait, you’re hurt!”

“Very glad you noticed.” Byleth glances down at the cut—as expected, the skin around it is already starting to turn a sickly green. It probably isn’t as strong as the strange poison from the Lance of Ruin or the Death Knight’s scythe, but he doesn’t fancy moving around when he feels liable to fall over at any second. “Do you have an antitoxin, maybe?”

“ _That’s_ the first thing you ask us?” Caspar sighs, but he rummages through his pockets, only managing to fish out a half-empty bottle of vulnerary. “Sorry, man, didn’t think we’d run into much problems out here. Uh, will this be alright for now? We’ll get you back to the monastery right away—”

“B-Byleth!” Bernadetta cries, almost tackling him over the table. “I can’t believe it! Y-You never came back after the Battle of Garreg Mach, I felt awful about it for ages—but how long has it been? D-Do you still remember me? It’s me, Bernie!”

Byleth stares down at her. “You’ve grown,” he tells her, simply. “I like your hair.”

Bernadetta lets out a little wail and hugs his uninjured arm. “I l-like your hair too! Let’s bring you back to the monastery first—these bandits can wait, right?”

Caspar scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, they probably won’t be going anywhere that fast—I mean, they’ve got loads of smuggled treasure buried in here, it’ll take them a while to dig everything out. Come on, Byleth—”

“No. Wait.” Byleth swallows, pushing his way through the dizziness and sweeping his gaze across their surroundings again. No sign of any of the bandits, but a garbage dump shouldn’t be hard to navigate—it’s a _garbage dump,_ after all, not a labyrinth, and there are three of them rather than just him by himself now. “They have my things. The Creator Sword…”

“Well, someone’s gonna turn into a demonic beast if they hold onto it for long enough,” Caspar grumbles. “Okay, fine, you stay behind us. Hey, this is the perfect time to show you how much stronger I’ve gotten! Make sure to watch, alright?”

Bernadetta detaches herself from his arm. “I-I’ll be right behind you! So don’t worry about surprise attacks! I’ve gotten really good at intercepting those over the years.”

Byleth frowns. “The… years?”

They move further into the dumpster, Caspar picking his way through the heaps of garbage while flexing his arms. Bernadetta nods, her own confusion shining through in her expression. “Did you lose track of time?” she asks. “It’s been five years since Edelgard did the whole declaring-war-on-the-Church thing… I mean, well, you know what I mean, right? You were gone for five years.” Her lip wobbles dangerously—Byleth supposes that hasn’t changed about her. “We thought you were d-dead! Where’ve you been this whole time?”

 _Five years…?_ It can’t possibly have been that long—he had been falling from that cliff one moment, and then awake in this dumpster the next. But then again, there had been that dream with Sothis, though most of the details have already faded from memory… and most of all. Well.

He touches his hair again, runs his hand through the strangely-smooth strands unmarred by knots. Now this, he can imagine having taken five years to grow.

“I was sleeping,” he remembers to answer.

Bernadetta stares at him.

“I don’t know how,” Byleth adds. “I just was. And then… I woke up. Here. The bandits found me floating on a river, or something like that. Then you two came.”

“You were… sleeping,” Bernadetta repeats, apparently unable to move past that. “For five years.”

Byleth nods. It really shouldn’t be that hard to understand. Everybody slept sometimes.

After another second of staring, Bernadetta sighs and shakes her head. “Oh, well… I guess there are always just going to be things I’ll never figure out about you, Byleth. Are you feeling better now? If only either of us could do faith magic…”

“It’s fine.” Byleth downs the rest of Caspar’s vulnerary. It isn’t going to do anything about the poison, but it should at least keep him functioning for long enough until they can get back to the monastery.

 _The monastery…_ It must have been five years since he had last thought of that place. Had the Imperial army taken it over after the battle of Garreg Mach those years ago, then? He supposes it’s a good thing falling off the cliff hadn’t been for nothing, even if he had lost Father’s ring after all—there’s no way anyone is going to find something as tiny as that in all the rubble left behind. Still…

The monastery. Byleth repeats the words to himself like a mantra, if only to keep him going.

“There!” Caspar shouts, leaping forward with a battle cry—he crashes atop a fleeing bandit, gauntlets smashing into the man’s shoulders. More of the bandits scurry away, but Bernadetta hurriedly nocks her arrows and shoots as many of them down, catching two in the legs before the rest disappear around the corners like rats in a maze. Caspar swears, knocking the bandit beneath him into unconsciousness, then standing back up. “They’re awful good at this running-away thing, huh.”

Bernadetta frowns. “They’ve been running for a while now. I guess they’ve gotten good at it.”

At Byleth’s vaguely confused expression, Caspar explains, “We’ve been hearing rumors about some gang of bandits roaming around this area, selling a bunch of stuff to the black market… including people. Like, selling actual people! Can you believe that?”

“Selling them as slaves, you mean?” Byleth slowly asks. One of the bandits had mentioned _the market_ earlier… He suppresses a shudder at the thought of being sold to slave traders.

“Yeah. We got intel their latest base was here, so Edelgard asked Bern and I to go check it out. We just weren’t expecting to, well… run into _you_ of all people, Byleth!” Caspar crosses his arms. How he does that with gauntlets on, Byleth does not look into too carefully. “Where’ve you _been?_ Five years of silence, and you just show up like nothing happened?”

“I was sleeping,” Byleth repeats. He hopes he’s not going to have to do this with every person he runs into, because it’s already getting tiring.

Caspar stares at him. It is eerily similar to how Bernadetta had. “Uh… sleeping?”

“It’s a little hard to explain.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Caspar says, very clearly not at all convinced. “Well, if you were asleep, that’ll explain the hair! Just imagine having to swing a sword and accidentally hacking all your hair off. Wow, now that’s a nightmare.”

They cross the garbage dump, though it feels like there’s no end in sight—Bernadetta stuffs all the treasure and weapons they find along the way in a bag, but none of them are the Creator Sword, Athame, or the prayer ring. After what must be five minutes’ worth of absolutely nothing but the occasional bandit for Caspar to bash over the head with, Caspar groans and says, “Nothing! You sure they got your stuff, Byleth?”

Byleth nods. Caspar scratches his hair, and Byleth can’t help but look at it—so much about him is different, it’s a little hard getting used to how he looks now, all rugged and bulked up rather than the boyish teenager Byleth had grown fond of. “Where the hell could they be, then…”

Something rustles from the other end of the dumpster—it sounds like a garbage bag, but all three of them instantly look to the direction of the noise anyway. “Alright, let’s try there,” Caspar says, stepping around the scattered trash on the ground. Byleth follows suit, trying to keep his eyes open—it’s getting progressively harder and harder to look straight ahead, when all he wants to do is lie in the dirt and sleep, or just rest his eyes for one second…

A wave of dizziness hits him, and Byleth stumbles forward. A discarded glass bottle shatters under his foot.

“There! Get ‘em!” someone yells—bandits burst out from behind trash heaps and rubble, charging towards them with weapons raised.

One glance is enough to tell them that there are far too many of them to take on, but, well. What choice is there, Byleth supposes, pushing the dizziness away as best as he can and gathering his magic at his fingertips. Bernadetta squeaks in fright, fingers trembling as she nocks her arrows and fires near-blindly—Caspar doesn’t flinch, lashing out at the nearest men with his fists.

Byleth grits his teeth and sends a blast of fire towards one of the bandits; it lands, but he nearly loses his balance right after, and his palms sting with pain. _Why…? Am I just weaker after five years of doing nothing? Or is it the poison…?_

“W-We can’t take them all on!” Bernadetta says, hurriedly grabbing more arrows from her rapidly-emptying quiver. “We have to get out of here somehow—”

A hard, harsh sound—someone choking—Byleth whirls around, blinking back the stars in his vision, and sees a bandit snatching Bernadetta’s bow out of her limp fingers, his other hand aiming his bloodied knife away from Bernadetta’s bleeding neck and towards Byleth.

For a moment, time seems to pause of its own accord, and Byleth can only stare blankly at the blood. At Bernadetta’s blood. At blood he had actually never seen spill so freely from her body, now that he thinks about it. Then he looks up at her face, at the life fading from her eyes, as her whole body begins to slump onto the floor, and he can hear Caspar yelling beside him—

He closes his eyes. Focuses. When he opens them again, he sends a crack of thunder arcing through the air to electrify the man’s eyes before he can come anywhere close to Bernadetta. But he can’t deny the tremble in his hands, the waver in his vision, the shallowness of his breaths, none of which are from the poison in his system.

Has it been that long since he had watched someone he knows die before his eyes? No—he can swear it had only been yesterday when he had used a Divine Pulse for one of the first times in that battle against Miklan, when he had seen Caspar, and Linhardt—

“Byleth!” someone shouts—Caspar, it’s Caspar, and Byleth has to focus on the Caspar _now_ than the Caspar _then—_ “Get behind us!”

 _What? I’m fine,_ Byleth wants to say, but all that comes out is a strangled cough—no blood, not yet, but he can feel it threatening to come up the back of his throat like metallic bile. He lets Caspar push him to the back, intercepting a bandit about to swing his axe down and chop Byleth’s head off, probably. But two against an innumerable amount of bandits has no chance of ending well—and Byleth has to do something, he has to _help,_ he can’t be crumpling to his knees and coughing his lungs out, he has to help, he has to _protect them—_

Something kicks in his chest, like the ghost of a heartbeat. Byleth stares down at the dirt, touches his throat—the itch is gone, the taste of blood now a fading memory.

It’s warm, he realizes. It sounds like the turning pages of library books, smells like the fragrance of hot tea, feels like the scattered sunshine he misses so terribly. It feels like—like—

Byleth feels it a split second before it happens, the whistle of wind, the air itself going still—but the pressure this time is so much more terrible than he remembers it being, and he thinks he can see some of the bandits’ eyes go wide and mouths go slack, as if their lungs were being drained of oxygen—

And then a wave of cutting wind, slicing through the band of bandits better than any sword. Byleth watches the blood spilling out of the gashes, hears the screams as limbs detach from bodies.

“Lin!” Caspar shouts, waving a hand towards the exit of the dumpster—it’s slightly uphill, and the glare of the sun only allows Byleth to see a dark silhouette. “You’re here! Great timing, man!”

 _Lin…_ “Linhardt…?”

 _It can’t be,_ Byleth thinks, at first, half-numb and half-shocked. Linhardt can’t have just murdered a dozen men in the brutal fashion he hates so much, Linhardt can’t have just intentionally used the corrupted form of his reason magic, Linhardt can’t be _here,_ killing so remorselessly. Hadn’t Byleth promised him, after all, that Linhardt wouldn’t have to kill again? He wouldn’t have to dirty his hands with blood, because—because Byleth would do it for him, and he wouldn’t have to lock himself up in his room, wouldn’t have to ask himself why his magic is going wrong—

But Byleth’s been gone five years, he remembers, and when the clouds cover the sun and he looks back up at the hill, it’s Linhardt standing there, arms outstretched, palms open.

Light bounces off the gem on his left ring finger—it flickers red, then turns back to deep ocean blue.

“Are you alright, Byleth?” Bernadetta frets, helping him get back up on his feet. “The poison must have gotten too much—huh? A-Are you okay now?”

“I… That’s…”

Byleth blinks, shakes his head, tries to focus, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the bodies now littering the ground around them. He’s seen this happen up close before, he knows, though he can hardly remember it anymore—it had been in the canyon, when they were up against Kostas, and the two of them had gotten separated from the rest of their class. The first time Byleth had ever seen Linhardt cast magic that failed—the first time Byleth had ever seen Linhardt with blood on his hands.

It’s only happened a handful of other times since then, something Byleth had gone to great pains to ensure. And now—and now—

“Byleth,” Bernadetta says, voice soft and low, “come on. We’ll get your things and then get out of here—right? We will. So—just come on, okay? We’ll be fine.”

“Ah… I… Okay.”

Byleth appreciates her help, he does—but he can’t bring himself to do anything other than stare as Linhardt descends the hilltop, his movements stiff and slow. Caspar opens his mouth, probably to shout something again, then looks behind him at Byleth and seems to think better of it. “Hey, Lin,” Caspar says, awkwardly, “this might be a little, uh. Surprising. But—”

“No need to explain. I… already know.”

For a moment there’s only silence and staring. Byleth can’t look away—with each breath that passes it feels like he only sees more changes in Linhardt’s person, from the longer hair to the curve of his neck to the line of his jaw. Even the shape of his eyes looks more angular, and for one delirious moment Byleth wants to trace their outline, feel it under his fingers and memorize this new part of him. How could it have been five years? Byleth wants, terribly, to grab all the lost time back, wants to Divine Pulse himself all the way back to that battle so he wouldn’t have had to miss out on seeing Linhardt change so _much._

When Linhardt speaks, Byleth zeroes in on his voice—but that, at least, hasn’t changed at all. It’s so relievingly _familiar_ that Byleth doesn’t register a single word he says. “Your hair,” he blurts out, cutting off whatever Linhardt had been saying.

Linhardt stares at him. “What?”

“It’s… It’s grown.”

Beside him, Bernadetta groans into her hands and mumbles something that sounds like “secondhand embarrassment.”

“Wh… _my_ hair?” Linhardt stammers, reaching up to touch the offending strands. In that moment, Byleth is horribly jealous of Linhardt’s hand, because for some reason there is nothing he wants more in the world than to run his fingers through the long, dark green hair draped upon Linhardt’s shoulders. “Have you seen _yours?_ Mine pales in comparison, I should say.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Byleth gathers his ridiculously long hair up in his arms. “It was like this when I woke up.”

“Woke up—?”

“Linhardt! Are you there?” someone shouts, followed by the thumping of hooves on the ground. The silhouette of a horse emerges from the hilltop, its rider tugging on the reins to guide it down the slope. “I found some weapons you might want to look at, your hunch may have just been right after all— _ah!_ ” Ferdinand shouts, his horse tottering over to their little group. “It—But it can’t be!”

Byleth raises a hand in a wave. “Hello,” he greets. “It’s been a while. Your hair’s grown, too.”

“Well! Ah, yes, it—it certainly has!” Ferdinand exclaims, jumping neatly off his horse and almost dropping the Creator Sword onto the ground. Byleth gently takes the sword from his hands, feeling relief wash over him as the familiar weight of the weapon settles itself back at his waist, and tucks Athame in his coat pocket. Ferdinand gingerly hands over the sparkling ring, its gem a reassuring light green, and Byleth tries to hide how his shoulders relax the moment he slips it back on his finger. “Your hair has grown as well, B… Byleth… Alright, _how_ exactly—”

“Explanations can wait ‘til we get back to the monastery, can’t they?” Caspar interrupts, stretching his arms over his head. “Man, Edelgard’s definitely gonna wanna hear about this! And the professor too, of course!”

“The prof—” Byleth’s thoughts screech to a halt.

_Father._

Five years and Father’s still fighting for the Imperial army… He must truly believe in Edelgard’s cause, to stay by her side for so long. Has he changed, too? Has Edelgard? Has Hubert? Logic dictates that they should have, that they _must_ have, and yet Byleth can’t help but stupidly, selfishly wish they had stayed the same. With everyone so different around him, it all feels so _sudden,_ like a wave of noise drowning out everything that used to be comforting, everything that used to be familiar.

But—he looks at Linhardt, in front of him, speaking lowly with Ferdinand and Caspar, Bernadetta a half-step behind them. They’re still here. They’ve changed, but they’re still here.

Byleth swallows the dizziness down—this time, he knows for sure it isn’t from the long-gone poison—and follows them home.

“You were asleep,” Father slowly repeats. “For five years.”

Byleth absently runs a hand through his hair, still damp from the shower Father had practically forced him to take five minutes after walking in the monastery. “That’s what I said.”

“Apologies if I find that a little hard to wrap my head around,” Father sighs, settling back down in his chair, to Byleth’s relief. He had paced restlessly for almost ten minutes now. “Let me guess. This has something to do with the goddess inside you, doesn’t it? Sothis.”

“I think so. Maybe. I… I dreamt of her,” Byleth says, “but I don’t know how long ago that had been… or if she only appeared right before I woke up… it’s all blurry. I don’t really know anything.”

Father shakes his head. “You know what? I’m not complaining. As long as you’re here, kid, I—I’m fine with that. With whatever the hell happened to you.”

“Really?”

“I mean, I’d thank the goddess, but I still don’t know how that works.”

“You can thank her,” Byleth tells him, feeling a smile tug on his lips. “She’ll hear it.”

“Will she, now,” Father murmurs. He sighs again when he looks out the window of his office—it’s late in the afternoon, and the sun is just beginning to dip beneath the horizon. “Aren’t you surprised this place is still standing?” he asks. “Last you probably saw, it was a wreck.”

Byleth shrugs. “I watched Rhea turn into a dragon,” he says. “Not a lot of stuff is very surprising after that.”

“Yeah… Yeah, that’s fair. Say, you think you could turn into a dragon too? I mean, you’ve both got green hair…”

Byleth nods vigorously. “I’ve thought about that before. It makes perfect sense.” Then he falters, and looks down at his hands. “But I didn’t… get the chance to ask her about it. Sothis, I mean. She…”

Father takes a deep breath and lets it out in a heavy exhale. “She’s still gone, huh?”

“Yes.” It had only been for a moment—or, no, Byleth doesn’t know how long that dream had lasted. It could have been a minute, an hour, all five years—all that time had blurred into a single dream, one where Sothis had been the only point of focus, and still Byleth hadn’t been able to ask her every one of his questions that need answering.

There are still so many things he doesn’t know about her, Byleth thinks. That, too, hasn’t changed.

“What’s happened, so far?” Byleth decides to ask. “While I’ve been gone.”

Father looks at him. “I thought Hresvelg and Vestra briefed you on that already. Right now our target is—”

“Not that,” Byleth interrupts. He leans across Father’s desk, crossing his arms and propping his chin atop them. “You know. To everyone. To you.”

“Oh.” Father stares down at him. “Oh. Yeah, uh… I don’t know. I haven’t changed, really. War’s nothing new. It’s been a lot of fighting and rebuilding, mostly… the library took a while. It’s still taking a while, actually.”

“That’s my fault,” Byleth mutters. “Sorry.”

“No big deal. You brought back all the important books right before you burnt the place down anyway.”

“Was it strange?” Byleth asks. “Being without me.” He’s never been without Father for too long before, which means it must be the same for Father—and for five whole years, too.

Father is silent for a moment, then says, voice low, “Yeah. It was.”

“Oh.”

“I couldn’t take it, at first,” he continues, picking idly at the wood grains on his desk. “I blamed everyone that day. Edelgard, for starting the war—Linhardt, for failing to save you—Lady Rhea, for pushing you off that damn cliff in the first place—even the goddess, for not doing her job and protecting her literal vessel.” Father massages his forehead. “But most of all myself. For not being there when you needed me. Again.”

Byleth swallows. “Father—”

“It’s over now,” Father cuts in, “so no point thinking about who’s to blame. I guess there isn’t anyone, really. But…” He shakes his head. “Those were some of the worst five years of my life, kid. I’ll tell you that.”

“I…” Byleth looks down. There’s an inexplicable sense of guilt rising up in him, which doesn’t really make _sense,_ because it isn’t as if it’s _his_ fault Rhea blasted him into the void for literal years. But compared to everyone else, he thinks he may have actually gotten off _easy—_ after all, he hasn’t changed a bit. Time had stopped for him. Apart from his hair, he doesn’t think he even looks any different.

It’s only been an hour, maybe two, since the world’s been gone for Byleth. But it’s been five years—and an hour, maybe two—since Byleth’s been gone from the world. From Father.

Byleth stands up, pushing his wet hair behind his shoulders, and walks around Father’s desk to stand in front of him. He allows himself a moment of unnecessary contemplation, and Father a moment of obvious confusion, before Byleth bends down and wraps his arms around Father’s back.

“I’m sorry,” Byleth says into his shoulder, doing his best to inject as much sincerity in his voice as he can. It still sounds fixed and stilted, like everything else he says, but he thinks he feels Father relax under him. “I… I was careless that day.”

“You—” Father laughs lowly and returns the hug, squeezing tighter than he ever has before; Byleth presses his ear to the crook of Father’s neck, memorizes the rhythm of his heartbeat pulsing under his skin. “Yeah. Yeah, you really were, huh.”

“It’s—” _my fault, I should have been paying more attention, I shouldn’t have gotten distracted—_ “I—” _I’m sorry I lost your ring, I’m sorry I left you alone, I’m sorry I don’t know what to do anymore—_ but the words feel like mire in his throat, thick and sludgy and stubbornly refusing to leave his mouth.

“I know.” Father sighs, breath tickling Byleth’s hair. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s fine. As long as you’re here, it’s fine.”

The library is. Well. Not quite a library anymore, if Byleth’s being honest. Then again, he really only has himself to blame for that.

It’s far less important than other parts of the monastery, so construction here is slow-going—even now it’s empty, composed only of a single room just slightly bigger than his dorm and two half-empty bookshelves. Beyond that is a largely-burnt area marked off-limits, though only by one crudely-made sign rather than any actual boundary. Byleth suppresses a sigh—it’s not _nothing,_ he supposes.

Though really, he would have expected at least _one_ person to put more effort into the reading selection. One bookshelf is made up entirely of old, tattered children’s books that were probably donations, while the other one contains very familiar-looking school-issued textbooks. Also probably donations.

He sighs and chooses one at random. Byleth mostly just wants to have a book back in his hands again. Edelgard had been nice enough to tell him to stay off the front lines in the upcoming fight—after staring blankly at him and then proceeding to hug the oxygen out of him, anyway—and though he knows he shouldn’t be slacking off, he _had_ just come back from a five-year death. He probably deserves _one_ day to relax before he throws himself back into training and making sure his body still knows how to use a sword…

Byleth stills. There’s someone else here.

They’re very obviously trying to hide their breathing, considering Byleth hadn’t heard it until now—more evidence he’s gotten rusty, it seems. But the library is too small for anyone to hide in, and he would have seen them by now…

Or would he have? He lifts his gaze up to the burnt area, the evidence of what he had done years ago, and already knows.

Byleth reshelves the book, suddenly very disinterested, and picks his way along the creaky floorboards, passing by the _KEEP OUT_ sign without another thought. There, leaning on the wall between two blackened bookshelves, is the first person he should have thought of. “Hello.”

No response—then Linhardt sighs and grudgingly looks up from his book, expression unreadable. “You still greet people like that.”

Byleth frowns. “Is there any other way?” Could greetings have changed over the course of five years? Surely not.

“Plenty. Don’t trouble yourself with that, though.” And he looks back down at his book, like the conversation had never happened.

Byleth feels his frown deepen. Had he done something to make Linhardt mad at him _already?_ He’s only been awake for two hours… absently he twists the ring around his finger, and feels his hopes rise when Linhardt’s gaze flickers up to watch the movement. “Ah… Did I do something wrong?”

The severity in Linhardt’s expression lightens, and Byleth takes a moment to look at his face again. He really has changed, Byleth thinks—not just from age, but there’s a certain quality to every little detail, from the slope of his nose to the curve of his cheek, that Byleth _knows_ is different and yet can’t put a finger on. “I am just… tired.”

“Oh. Okay.” Byleth suddenly wishes he had brought that random book along with him, if only to have something else to fiddle with. “What are you reading?” he decides to ask. It’s a safe question, right?

Linhardt silently flips his book backwards, showing its cover. _Medicine & Magic, Vol. 3. _

“Oh. Okay,” Byleth says, again. “It looks interesting. Do you have the previous two volumes?”

“How do you—” Linhardt exhales harshly and pinches the bridge of his nose, setting the book down on the edge of a shelf. “Are you really just going to act like everything is fine? That everything is—is alright again or something, now that you’re here?”

Byleth blinks. “But I… I am. I am here.” _No, you idiot, wrong thing to say,_ he imagines Sothis berating him, when he sees Linhardt’s eyes narrow. “I mean—no, it isn’t as if everything is alright, but…”

 _I thought you might have wanted me around,_ he doesn’t say.

“You can’t just—just show up after all this time and pretend nothing ever happened,” Linhardt spits. It’s the sharpest Byleth’s ever heard him, and there’s a terrible mix of emotions in his voice that Byleth can’t differentiate one from the other, like splashes of paint on a canvas that have long dried into some unrecognizable color. “Maybe for _you_ it’s only been five minutes, but for m—for us, it’s been five years of being without you, B—By—”

He freezes, face struck by some pained expression for a moment, before he turns away from Byleth entirely and shrouds his face in the shadows.

“Linhardt?” Byleth cautiously ventures.

Linhardt flinches, and Byleth suddenly wonders how long it must have been since Linhardt has heard his voice. “How pathetic,” he mutters. “I can’t even say your name.”

“I…” _I missed you,_ Byleth wants to say, but that would be wrong, because he hadn’t even had the luxury of being able to _miss_ any of them—the passage of time had avoided him entirely, like a rock cutting through a river, and now five years of his life have been ripped away from him while Linhardt has five years’ worth of memories where Byleth is dead. “Linhardt, I—”

Linhardt shakes his head—such a small action, Byleth thinks, so minuscule and insignificant until it’s turned on him and it numbs every little sensation in his body, all except for the stab of pain in his chest. “Don’t,” he says. “Just… not now. Not like this.”

He brushes past Byleth. It would only take a few seconds, a few beats of a heart, for him to leave altogether, and that thought frightens Byleth so terribly that he doesn’t think before reaching out and grabbing Linhardt’s wrist, pulling him back a few stumbling steps. “W—Wait,” he stammers. “Don’t go. Please.”

Linhardt’s entire person tenses. “Let go.”

“Linhardt—”

“ _Don’t!_ ” he snaps, wrenching his hand away—Byleth steps unsteadily backwards, staring at where Linhardt’s wrist had just been. Then, in a voice so _broken,_ so frighteningly fragile, “Don’t say it.”

Byleth’s ears ring. “W… What?”

“I can’t stand it,” Linhardt breathes. “Hearing your voice after all this time—after I thought you were dead for five years, five _years,_ for the longest time I didn’t want to leave my room, I almost left the army altogether, and _yet—_ ” He pauses, swallows, shakes his head again. “Here you are. It seems you exist just to spite me.”

“That’s…” Byleth chances a step forward, trying not to stutter when he speaks again. “That’s not fair.”

“ _Not fair?_ ” Linhardt hisses, whirling around, his hands sparking with wind magic. Byleth hastily retreats, his back hitting the bookshelf behind him—he’s never seen Linhardt so _angry_ before, enough that his magic is acting up, and the knowledge that _he’s_ the reason for it makes Byleth feel more terrible than he’s ever felt. “What’s _not fair_ is you coming back to life after so _long,_ and—and acting like everything is perfectly alright again, that you can talk to me like nothing ever happened and that I would just be _fine_ with that, with you playing with my—”

His words skid to a stop, and he turns back around again. The magic in his fists fizzles out. “Just let me go,” Linhardt finally murmurs, the fire gone from his words. Then, in an undertone so soft Byleth just barely hears it, “I don’t want to have to lose you again.”

Byleth feels it more than he sees it—the clack of Linhardt’s heels on the floor, the creaking of the library doors. It would only take him another few seconds, another few heartbeats, to reach out and call his name—it would only take him so much effort not to let go. He would barely have to try—to want to be by Linhardt’s side is nothing new.

But he stands there instead, back against a bookshelf, staring at a burn mark on the wall. The library doors swing shut.

 _Coward,_ a voice whispers. _After everything you’ve lost, you can’t even hold on to what’s still left._

The Great Bridge of Myrddin passes like a blur, mostly. Byleth doesn’t pay much attention to anything happening around him—which is new, because if there’s anything he’s been able to pride himself on, it’s his observational skills on the battlefield.

But this time, everything feels like he’s sinking underwater, watching events unfold from afar: Leonie, blinking back tears when she sees the Hero of Daphnel across the bridge—Petra on a pegasus, flying over everyone else to get to the ballista—Hubert breaking away from Edelgard’s side to intercept a Mire spell headed for Caspar. All the while Byleth stays at the sidelines, healing the soldiers who come limping back or are warped by mages, steering clear of dark green robes and dark green hair not too far away from him.

For some reason, he can’t trust himself to hold a sword, even when the Creator Sword just about begs to be thrown into battle—even his reason magic comes out faulty and prone to dying out. Only his faith magic seems to be as reliable as it was five years ago, a discovery he clings to like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood—his hands are steady when he casts a Heal spell, painless when he pushes himself for a Recover one.

 _A healer_ —he still isn’t quite used to responding to that yet, though he knows he is one, now.

Across the bridge is a figure dressed in green, looking vaguely familiar—Byleth makes sure the injured soldiers are all taken care of, then picks himself up and darts around to hide behind a structure. He _has_ seen that man before, though when and where Byleth can’t remember. Short hair, round glasses, throwing his bent bow to the ground and brandishing a sword instead—

 _Oh._ Byleth silently calls on his magic. The Golden Deer student, from the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. His basic fighting style, so textbook it had been pitifully easy to disarm him.

Now the student—no, the man—turns with impressive reflexes to meet Byleth’s eyes all the way across the bridge and behind the structure, and Byleth suddenly realizes his classmates are not the only ones who have changed over the years.

“You,” the man says, moving so fast it’s hard for Byleth to react—he gets the Creator Sword up just in time to parry his attack. “I remember you. Byleth, right? From the Black Eagles?”

“Strike Force.”

“What—?”

Byleth twists his wrist, sharp enough that it catches his opponent off-guard, but not enough to fully disarm him. So he isn’t falling for that technique a second time, then. “It’s the Black Eagles Strike Force now.”

“So all of you…” The man leaps back, putting a safe distance between them. Byleth adjusts to a one-handed grip and lets the Creator Sword unfold into its whip-like form, then readies a Fire spell with his other hand. “So all of you joined Edelgard’s cause?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” he asks. He sounds genuinely curious, genuinely desperate to know. “I don’t understand. Can’t you see what’s wrong with all this? This—This war against the Church?”

Byleth cocks his head. The man’s hands are moving, ever so slightly, his arms tensing and ready to swing. “No,” he replies, as honestly as he can sound. “There are worse things than war.”

The fight is fast—the man has taken Byleth’s advice to heart, it seems, because now all his movements are so subtle they are only just barely visible, making his next action entirely unpredictable. On one hand, Byleth wishes he hadn’t said those words to this man, all those years ago when he had still been a student. On the other—

He flings his Fire spell out as soon as the man’s blade comes too close to his neck, and he yelps as flames cling to his clothes, creeping rapidly towards his bare skin. Byleth shoves him back and dispels the fire before it can do any real damage—for a fleeting moment he hears the echo of a scream in his head, the crackling of fire eating paper and wood—then levels the Creator Sword above the man’s neck.

The man exhales heavily. “Go ahead. Do it.”

It occurs to Byleth that this was their exact position during that school battle, except the man hadn’t been a man yet, only a student, only a teenager. The Creator Sword gleams, ready and waiting to draw blood. Has he always been like that? So eager to kill, so hungry for the thrill of watching someone die before him?

_With work, you could improve your technique more than you already have. You’re too textbook. Try training with someone else who can challenge you to think outside of what you already know._

On one hand, Byleth wishes he hadn’t said anything those years ago—on the other, he’s almost proud.

“You’ve improved,” Byleth says. The man’s sword stutters an inch away from his neck—Byleth unsheathes Athame with his free hand and digs it deep into his throat.

In the distance, he hears someone shouting a name, over and over— _Ignatz,_ it sounds like. Byleth looks up from the body, sees someone sprinting across the bridge. _Judith,_ his mind supplies, _the Hero of Daphnel_ —her injuries are near-grotesque, leg twisted at an unnatural angle and arrows protruding from her back and arms. Byleth tenses, trying to decide whether to fight or flee—then Ferdinand comes galloping from behind Judith on his horse, Edelgard riding with him. She leaps off the mount, Aymr’s spikes glowing with the sunlight—

“Ah,” Byleth says, very softly. He is no stranger to the sound of flesh ripping open—yet for some reason it sounds so much more horrible now, the knowledge that he is bearing witness to a wound he cannot—should not—heal. He looks down at the body at his feet instead, watches the blood pool beneath the man’s neck.

No—not ‘the man.’ _Ignatz._ Byleth had never known his name, not even during their academy days. Is it not strange, that he only knows it now, after Ignatz is dead at his hands? Had it been a subconscious decision of his, to place as little importance in a man’s name as he did in his life?

“Alliance soldiers! Judith has fallen!” Edelgard shouts, raising her axe. Blood splatters onto the cold ground. “Further conflict is futile! If you surrender, your lives will be spared. Lay down your weapons immediately.”

Byleth tucks Athame back in his coat, and pulls the Creator Sword back into its normal form. Around him, the soldiers are thrown in a state of confusion he has no interest in.

 _There are worse things than war,_ he’d said, but Byleth stares at the corpses around him and wishes, briefly, that he had been lying. Because the battlefield has never made his ears ring like this before—as a mercenary, he walked away from every fight either victorious and satisfied or defeated and rather vengeful, or as vengeful as his past self could have been. If he won, good—if he lost, there was always next time. He did not fear death more than defeat—at the time death seemed like a far-away concept, something that only happened to the ones beneath his blade.

It’s still the same now. So he doesn’t know what makes this so different, what makes his head feel ready to burst, what makes his bones feel about to splinter, what makes him want to rip his unbeating heart out of his chest—it isn’t as if it’s doing a very good job of keeping him alive, after all.

“Kid.” Father trots up beside him on his horse, who whinnies and tosses its head, flicking blood off its mane. “You alright? She got close to you.”

“I’m fine.” He’s not.

Father frowns, and Byleth should have known better than to try lying. “Don’t look like it. Come on, get up here. It’ll be a bit of a walk back.”

On any other day, Byleth would decline because he takes his endurance training seriously (although he can’t quite remember what prompted him to anymore); today, he says nothing, only clambers up Father’s horse and makes himself comfortable. “Father.”

“Yeah?”

“You truly believe in Edelgard’s cause?”

“Yeah.”

No pause. No hesitation. No moment for thinking. Byleth rests his forehead against Father’s back, feels his muscles move as he guides his horse over to where Edelgard and the rest of the Strike Force are beginning to gather. “I see.”

“Why do you ask? Having second thoughts?”

“No.” He’s not lying this time—he still supports Edelgard as much as he had five years ago. Seeing her face light up at the sight of him, and feeling her hug him like he matters so much more to her than he thought—those only make Byleth want to help her more. “But I’m starting to think about… something else. Other things. It’s not about Edelgard, really. More about myself.”

Father would probably turn to look at him right now, but with Byleth still leaning on his back, he doesn’t move. “Go on. I’m listening.”

Byleth sighs. “I don’t think I like killing.”

“Well, did you ever?”

The response is so normal and natural, not surprised in the least, that Byleth finally lifts his head to blink at the back of Father’s hair in confusion. “What?”

“Did you ever like killing people at all?”

“I…”

The silence lengthens when Byleth can’t think of anything to say, and Father snorts lightly in a sort of fond amusement Byleth has never known how to entirely classify. It’s such a uniquely Father-ish feeling that he’s stopped trying altogether. “Rarely anyone likes killing for the sake of killing. I definitely don’t. You probably didn’t get to develop much of an opinion when you were a mercenary—you became one out of convenience, and there was the whole no-emotions thing, too. So if you were expecting me to be surprised, I’m a little disappointed.”

“Ah, I—I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry about it.” He steers his horse away—had Edelgard given a speech? All Byleth can hear is Father’s heartbeat, sure and steady. “If you don’t like killing, what do you like, then?”

Byleth shrugs. “Healing.”

“Yeah. Expected that one, too. Sorry, kid, but I’m still far from surprised. Try a little harder next time.”

“Oh…” Byleth worries on his lower lip. He’s glad Father’s being so blasé about this whole thing—though he hadn’t been expecting Father to get mad at him or anything, either—but it’s a little… underwhelming, he supposes is the word. “Really? Was it obvious?”

“Was it _obvious—_ ” Father sighs and turns around to face him at last, taking just enough time to ruffle Byleth’s hair. “You’ve been healing others more than anything throughout this battle. And you’ve just been gravitating towards it more and more, haven’t you? Seriously, you didn’t need to tell me a single word from the past five minutes, I already knew it all. Though I guess it’s nice to hear it from your own mouth, but you know what I mean.”

“I… I suppose.”

It’s Father’s turn to shrug this time. “It’s not like I’m forcing you to kill, or forbidding you to heal. Really, kid, it’s up to you. You’ve gone some twenty-odd years without feeling a single emotion or having a single opinion. Figures it’s time for you to start, right?”

Byleth nods, and this time the movement comes a little easier, the ringing in his ears a little softer. “Yeah. Right.”

He looks back at the bridge, at the bodies strewn across the once-white grounds. _There are worse things than war,_ he tells himself.

_Which means there must be better things, too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should probably clarify that by minor character death, i meant minor characters will die. a lot of them.  
> the setting in the first scene with sothis came from [here](https://twitter.com/extravirgin_oo/status/1198226282237968384?s=21), and i was inspired to have byleth have goddess-length hair because of  
> [this](https://twitter.com/ShahaeChan/status/1195934735845019648)!
> 
> next chapter:  
> edelgard: hubert, what's his problem?  
> hubert: it's the pining, your majesty


	19. guardian moon — “i couldn’t keep my promise.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hubert moves a piece on the chessboard, to Byleth’s consternation. “Checkmate. There. It appears we are done.”
> 
> Byleth ignores the pointed finality in his voice and rearranges the pieces until they’re all back to the start. “Again.”
> 
> “Ahem.” Edelgard glares at them from the light of the doorway. “Did you not hear what I just said, Byleth.”
> 
> “I’ve only won _one_ game. Out of three.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [in your eyes there’s a sadness enough to kill the both of us / are those eyes overrated? they make me want to give up on love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCIXI9ubfFs) _
> 
> a lot of people have asked about byleth's new hair and how it will work in battle. rest assured it will be explained away via deus ex goddess blessing  
> enjoy the chapter!! also, new minor ship tag :]

“Byleth? Are you in?”

The door creaks open—Byleth reluctantly looks up to meet Edelgard’s eyes, which shift from inquiring to exhausted in under a second. “What… are you doing? We’re supposed to discuss strategy in ten minutes. Also, it’s pitch black! Would it kill you two to open a window or light a candle?”

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” Hubert apologizes dryly. “I did not think this would take so long. But—” He moves a piece on the chessboard, to Byleth’s consternation. “Checkmate. There. It appears we are done.”

Byleth ignores the pointed finality in his voice and rearranges the pieces until they’re all back to the start. “Again.”

“Ahem.” Edelgard glares at them from the light of the doorway. “Did you not hear what I just said, Byleth.”

“I’ve only won _one_ game. Out of three.”

Edelgard shakes her head and walks inside, just to draw the curtains away from the windows and let even more obnoxiously bright sunlight flood the room. Byleth suppresses a groan and instead buries his face in his hands. “Our next battle will be a decisive one, and we need your input on this, Byleth. I’ve already spoken with the professor, but your opinion is just as valuable.”

Byleth says nothing, instead toying with one of the white chess pieces on the board. From the corner of his eye, he can see Hubert idly watching the motion and Edelgard crossing her arms from where she stands by the window.

“Why?” he finally manages, voice clipped—then frowns down at the piece. He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out that sharp.

Edelgard doesn’t seem perturbed, for her part. “I’m sure you know. Once preparations are complete, we will soon be facing the leader of the Leicester Alliance.”

 _Claude._ Byleth sighs into his hands and finally drops the chess piece back on the board. “What about him?”

“He is not called the Master Tactician for no reason,” Hubert murmurs, sweeping the pieces into a case as he stands to fold the chess board back up. “He’s managed to keep the Alliance, divided between loyalties as it is, from acting out against one another, thereby minimizing the Empire’s influence there. But he is walking on very thin ice.” He snaps the case shut. “One wrong move, and the Alliance will shatter.” 

Byleth lets the words register briefly in his mind. Mostly he’s thinking about the Claude he knew at the academy, all restless mischief and gleaming, glinting eyes. The Claude who once helped Ashe with his archery and the Claude who climbed trees with Petra, or whatever it is they used to do for fun. The Claude who had tricked them into trusting him during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion and then turning on them when they had let their guard down. The Claude who had provoked Linhardt so terribly that—

He shakes the thoughts from his head.

“What is your opinion on him?” Edelgard asks.

It takes Byleth a moment to realize she’s addressing him. “He’s… a schemer.” Before either of them can point how that is glaringly obvious, he adds, “But if he hasn’t launched an attack on us yet, even throughout those five years—doesn’t that make you wonder if his own ambitions are in line with ours?”

Edelgard sighs and turns away, looking outside the window. “I have thought the same thing, a few times before. Yet if that is true, then he has not offered help to us either, has he?”

“Speaking of Claude, Your Majesty, it appears he has some fresh scheme up his sleeve once again,” Hubert says, already sounding tired. “The people of Derdriu have suddenly found it difficult to leave or enter the city. We can safely assume he is preparing for battle, but I am certain his plans extend beyond that as well.”

Edelgard hums. “So he must have predicted our invasion of the city. Of course he has. At any other time that would have been a problem, but now that we have control over the Great Bridge of Myrddin…”

Byleth does his best to look as if he is paying as much attention to the conversation as possible rather than staring blankly at his desk. He’s really not quite sure why Edelgard has decided he’s as good a strategist as Father is—because Byleth really isn’t. All he ever does is rely on his instincts and leave the rest up to his reflexes. Perhaps before the past five years, he had been fairly decent at battle tactics, but only because of the others’ relative inexperience…

Or perhaps he’s been fairly decent with them this whole time, and he just can’t bring himself to concentrate on things like those anymore, when everything feels numb and muted around him.

“Byleth?” Edelgard calls, and Byleth tunes her back in. “You were listening, yes?”

“Mm. If House Riegan falls, the other Alliance lords will doubtless join us,” Byleth says, reciting the last thing he remembers Hubert saying word-for-word. “But this will be a difficult battle. It’s Claude, after all.”

Edelgard sighs. “Alright. I’m glad you were paying attention, but now that we’ve settled these matters—are you feeling unwell?”

Byleth blinks. “What?”

“You haven’t been engaging in much conversation since last month,” Edelgard says. “Well, not that you engage in much conversation to begin with, but—less so than I remember, that is. And you have simply seemed… even more subdued than you already are, to put it nicely.”

“What Her Majesty is saying,” Hubert politely interjects, “is that you have been downright miserable.”

“ _Hubert!_ ”

“Forgive me. I only speak the truth. You also mentioned the exact words just the other day.”

“Yes, in _private—_ ” Edelgard coughs and arranges herself once more. Byleth just stares blankly at the both of them. He’s been doing that a lot more often lately. “Anyway. What I mean to say is that… ahem… if you are having any problems at all, it is perfectly fine to speak with us about it.”

Hubert shakes his head as minutely as he can. “Only if I absolutely must. But yes.”

When the pair go quiet, Byleth realizes they’re probably waiting for a response—he wracks his head for an appropriate one, comes up with nothing, and eventually just shrugs. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Really,” Edelgard repeats, looking like she doesn’t believe a word.

“Really,” Byleth confirms. “I’ve just been… I’m… trying to get used to this. But I truly am fine. So there’s no need to worry.”

“Really,” Hubert repeats, looking like he doesn’t believe a word either.

Byleth frowns at them, and Edelgard smiles. A rare sight, Byleth notes. “Alright. If you say so, Byleth. But you will come to us if you are having troubles, won’t you? Or any of the Black Eagle Strike Force, really. You know we all care about you deeply, especially now that you’re back with us. Even now, it’s still a little hard to believe.”

“That I’m here again?”

Edelgard nods. “I wouldn’t say we had… gotten used to being without you. Because we had gotten so used to being _with_ you that it was—strange, to have a missing spot among our ranks that we knew should be filled in. It’s why we never stopped searching around the monastery, even years afterwards…”

She trails off, and Byleth thinks that’s the end of it, but then she adds, “Apart from the professor, Linhardt took it the hardest.”

The words take a long moment to process in his head. “What?”

“He blamed himself for your disappearance,” Edelgard continues, looking down at the floor. “The first few days after we claimed Garreg Mach, he joined the search parties for hours on end—but when we had scoured every inch of the place and still couldn’t find you, he locked himself up in his dorm and refused to leave. It was mostly Caspar who convinced him to eat every so often.”

Hubert subtly clears his throat, and Edelgard jolts to attention. “That being said,” she says, speaking much faster and a hint of panic tingeing her voice, “this, er—this isn’t us telling you what to do or anything—in fact, why don’t you forget everything I just said, Byleth?”

“What…?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Hubert agrees, standing up and opening the door to the room. “Focus on the battle ahead. Don’t let yourself get distracted. That would be very awful. Very awful, indeed.”

Edelgard nods. “Indeed.”

“Um…” Byleth blinks slowly, trying to get the cogs in his brain turning again. He knows they must work somehow, but his thoughts refuse to catch up to anything they’re saying. “Okay. Bye.”

But even after they leave and Byleth has the rest of the day to lie in bed and stare at his ceiling like he’s been doing for the past several weeks, he can’t so simply forget everything Edelgard had said. The words are stubborn, bouncing off the walls of his head and refusing to be erased, and all Byleth can do is let them, because—he doesn’t really want to forget, either. There’s an itch under his skin now, a sort of restlessness that feels familiar and foreign at once, like something he had felt years before but has since forgotten why…

He sighs and gets up from bed, trying to ignore how his head spins at the sudden movement. There’s no way he can sleep now, but what else is there to do in the middle of the afternoon? Byleth supposes he can get something to eat while he tries to finish a book he’s been absently reading on and off for the past few weeks. Also, fish just sounds plain delightful right now.

Byleth makes his way to the dining hall, avoiding a number of stares and whispers from the Imperial soldiers he passes by. He spots Mercedes with Ferdinand, talking about flowers in the greenhouse—Lysithea nearly walks into a pillar, focused as she is on reading a thick tome—and somewhere in the distance, Byleth can hear faint singing that sounds like Dorothea.

If he ignores the Imperial soldiers, it almost feels like the academy again. Is that possible? Or has it always been this way, and he just hadn’t noticed until now because he’d been hiding away in his room?

The dining hall is fairly empty at this time of the day, and Byleth takes the chance to scour the leftovers from lunch. No fish today, he notes with disappointment—there are some sweet buns left, which are his usual go-to snacks, but Byleth forces his gaze away from the half-empty tray. What else? Maybe the Gronder meat skewers—Caspar’s obsessed with the stuff, and they look easy enough to eat while flipping some pages at the same time. Byleth grabs a plate—

And almost drops it, when he hears something _thump_ from the kitchen.

He stills. The kitchen staff haven’t seemed to notice—they’re few and far in between anyway, mostly focused on their own business. There’s little possibility of a thief in the pantry, of all places—for one, Edelgard has increased security to the point that even sewer rats were executed on sight if they seemed unfamiliar. For another, anyone who successfully infiltrated the monastery would hardly be going to the _kitchen._ Really, Byleth shouldn’t even be worrying about this. It’s more likely a precariously-hung pot fell from its hook or something.

But—he sets the plate down and slips a hand into his coat instead. He hadn’t brought the Creator Sword, but Athame is snug against his chest, pulsing with dark magic. Byleth quiets his footsteps as he heads towards the door leading to the kitchen, pushes it open by just the slightest bit—

For the second time in five minutes, he almost drops something. Thankfully, Athame does not clatter onto the kitchen floor, but Byleth does get a full view of— _whatever_ Caspar and Ashe are doing pressed up against one of the counters.

“Uh,” he starts, and can’t find the words to continue.

Ashe’s previously-closed eyes fly open, and he lets out a little shriek when he shoves Caspar off of him. “B-B-B-Byleth!”

“What? Who?” Caspar whirls around, unsubtly smoothing out his wrinkled shirt. “Oh, shit! Byleth!”

“Uh,” Byleth repeats, “hello.”

“What are you just _doing_ there?” Ashe cries. His own shirt looks ruined beyond repair, though _how_ Byleth doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know either. “W-Were you—no, how long were you there?”

“I just… came in. I heard something. I thought…” Byleth trails off. He feels pretty stupid now. He really should have just stopped thinking at the precariously-hung pot and gotten his meat skewers and went back to his room. Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to witness… he doesn’t even know what he’d just witnessed, but somehow he has a feeling it isn’t something he was meant to see. “What were you doing?”

Ashe buries his face in his hands. Caspar flushes to the tips of his ears. “What do you mean, what were we doing?” Caspar shouts. He doesn’t sound angry, just panicked.

“I mean, you—” _looked like you were crushing Ashe against the counter, that must have hurt,_ Byleth means to say, until he runs the scenario through his head again. Then Ashe pulls the collar of his shirt up, drawing Byleth’s attention to a dark red mark just above his collarbone, and—oh.

_Oh._

Byleth’s heard of kissing before, definitely. It’s not an act he’s ever participated in, for obvious reasons—most of the mercenaries are much older than him, and he’d never felt the need to in the first place. People seemed to like it, though, but he’s never seen the appeal in sharing spit… or… whatever people did when they kissed. Byleth wouldn’t know.

“How long?” he suddenly remembers to ask. If Caspar and Ashe had gotten together throughout the five years and he’s only finding about it now, he’s going to be very disappointed in everyone around him.

Ashe seems unable to speak from sheer embarrassment. After plenty of coughing, Caspar finally manages to choke out, “Just now.”

“…Huh?”

“Just now!” Caspar shouts again. Any louder and one of the chefs is probably going to come inside and hit him with a frying pan. “So, uhh…! We’ll just… be going now!”

“Wait, Caspar!” Ashe yelps, grabbing Caspar’s arm before he can barrel outside. “Meatloaf! We can’t leave him in the kitchen!”

“Oh, right, shit, yeah.” Caspar bends down to peer beneath the counter they had just been—kissing—it’s such a strange word to use—on. “Meatloaf! Pspsps… Where’d he go?”

“Maybe he ran off while we were—” Ashe cuts himself off with another strangled cough. Caspar goes red again and stares down at the floor, stammering a sentence that never quite makes its way out of his mouth.

“Who are you looking for?” Byleth decides to ask, because if he leaves it up to these two to carry the conversation they’ll never get anywhere.

“Meatloaf!” Caspar declares, looking relieved. “He’s a cat. A Bergliez shorthair—hehe, like me—so he’s black and white. And he’s seriously fat.”

 _A black and white cat…_ It sounds vaguely familiar, but Byleth hasn’t seen the cat he had rescued from the monastery those years ago. For all he knows, it could have run off by itself after the battle and died somewhere on the streets… and anyway, he shouldn’t be thinking about this. That cat hadn’t been big nor fat either, just barely larger than a kitten and painfully thin. “I haven’t seen him.”

“Oh, no,” Ashe frets, “what if he ran into the dining hall—we’re never gonna hear the end of it from the kitchen staff! Caspar, let’s—”

Something rubs against Byleth’s leg. He reaches instinctively down, and jerks away when his bare hand touches fur.

“Oh, hey,” Caspar says. “There he is.”

A cat—Meatloaf—purrs as Byleth slowly reaches back down to scratch its chin. It’s definitely on the heavy side, and it smells suspiciously like its namesake, but… Byleth crouches down, and the cat readily jumps into his lap, clambering over his knees to settle against his chest. It bats at his hair, the long strands curling around its paws.

“It’s you,” he murmurs. The cat meows and bumps its nose against his cheek.

“Does he know you?” Ashe asks, getting down beside Byleth and holding out a handful of what look like leftovers from lunch. Meatloaf eagerly stretches its neck out to chomp the food up. “We thought he might have been a pet, since he was so friendly when we found him.”

Caspar joins them on the floor, popping open the lid of a worn container as well—Meatloaf meows excitably. “I wouldn’t call him friendly,” Caspar says. “He almost bit my hand off the first time around.”

“Oh, then he must like me more,” Ashe teases.

“Hey! I bet I feed him way better food than—”

Byleth exhales softly, his breath tickling the fur on the top of Meatloaf’s head. The name is terrible. Caspar probably thought of it. “He ran into my room after…” _After Sothis disappeared._ “After Solon.”

“Oh,” Ashe mumbles.

“And he stole my fish.”

Caspar laughs. “That sounds like him. It was just after we moved everything to the monastery—we found him stealing food from the pantry. I think it was here, actually, when we first saw him.”

“He was still really small,” Ashe says, stroking Meatloaf’s head. The cat purrs, and Byleth feels its vibrations against his chest.

“Yeah. So we started feeding him ‘cause otherwise he’d steal again, and then we found out his favorite food was meatloaf, and we were getting pretty tired of just calling him the cat all the time, so…” Caspar shrugs. “I mean, if you want him back—”

Ashe coughs awkwardly. “Yeah, it isn’t like he’s been living in my room—”

“No.” Byleth shakes his head. “You take care of him. It’s been five years—it wouldn’t be right.”

He lets their token protests fly straight over his head, and lets Meatloaf nibble at his hair before handing the cat back to Caspar. “I should get going,” Byleth says, switching his thoughts back to his meat skewers. “I didn’t mean to interrupt earlier, by the way. Sorry.”

Just like that, Ashe goes bright red once more, and Caspar accidentally squeezes Meatloaf too hard. “Yeah! Uh, no! It’s fine! Yeah!” Caspar shouts once more. If Byleth pays attention, he’s sure he can hear a very frustrated chef with a sharpened butchering knife in hand rapidly approaching the kitchen door. “Really! Don’t worry about it! Don’t ever think about it again, actually!”

Byleth scratches his cheek. “Okay…?”

After retrieving his meat skewers several minutes later than planned and retreating back into his room, Byleth settles himself in bed and flips his book open to the last page he’d read. But his concentration only lasts for a good minute; he finds himself staring at a spot on the floor, where Meatloaf—just a nameless stray cat, then—had first snatched his fish up off the ground and then refused to leave his room afterwards.

That had been just right after Sothis had disappeared within him—when she had sacrificed herself to save him, or the both of them, from the darkness Byleth had walked right into. After his hair and eyes had turned this color—after he had turned into whatever monster Solon had made of him… Is it simply coincidence, he wonders, that he had found some semblance of comfort in an animal that was just as ready to pull at his hair as Sothis used to?

Byleth shakes his head. It’s been five years, now, and the cat’s found someone else to be with. Someone else to come home to. Perhaps it really was coincidence, and he was never meant to care for it at all.

The pages of the book rustle, a light breeze coming in from the open window. A passage about the use of faith magic in conjunction with dark magic wavers before his eyes, and Byleth sighs.

_Just let me go. I don’t want to have to lose you again._

Perhaps that’s coincidence, too. Perhaps he was never meant to meet Linhardt at all, and the past five years without him have just led Linhardt to realize that fact. And now Byleth is here, still thinking about the clack of heels on the floor, still thinking about the creaking of the library doors swinging open, staring after a back that refused to turn around.

Byleth closes the book—only half a page read and understood today, as usual. He finishes off the last of his food, curls back under the blankets, and stares up at the opened window. After spending so long in the relative darkness of his room, it feels odd to leave it open like that.

But—he doesn’t bother reaching up to close the curtains. Byleth lets the sunlight stream in instead, warming up the room for the first time in what feels like a long while.

Steel sings all around him. Byleth holds back a perpetual flinch—the sounds of battle should be a melody to him, something to swing his sword to as easy as if he were following the conductor of this bloody orchestra—but it isn’t. Not anymore, at least. He wonders if it ever was.

Byleth advances through the city streets, cutting down every soldier he sees. Around him are others from the Strike Force assigned to securing Derdriu’s gates—Petra swooping down from her wyvern, Caspar tackling down men twice his size, Lysithea shooting spells at opponents miles away. A sword comes too close to Lysithea’s neck for comfort, and Byleth simultaneously begins sprinting towards her while readying the buzz of a Divine Pulse at the back of his head—but then the opposing soldier chokes and gurgles, and Byleth watches their head, cut clean off their neck, thud wetly onto the floor. Jeritza looms over the body atop his horse, black scythe gleaming with blood.

Byleth surreptitiously turns away and immediately heads the opposite direction. Right. He keeps forgetting Jeritza—the Death Knight— _whichever_ —is their ally now, considering he had wanted to rip that scythe out of his hands and use it to slice into the man’s chest for quite some time. Couldn’t he have just a little revenge for that time in the underground dungeons, as a treat?

He shakes the thoughts away. Not the time to be distracted.

In his peripheral, something catches the light and bounces off the blade of the Creator Sword—Byleth whirls around and parries the heaviest downward strike he’s ever encountered, his bones rattling from the force. A Hero’s Relic bears down on him, one of its spikes close enough to gouge his eye out if he lets up for a second. “Oh, Byleth,” a sing-song voice says, “it’s been too long, hasn’t it?”

The Relic’s wielder leaps back from him, only to rush him once again, long hair waving in the wind—Byleth blocks Hilda’s next strike once more, but her strength sends him skidding back a few inches. Has she always been this strong? Byleth can see the muscles on her arms, so much more defined than he vaguely remembers them from five years ago. “Hilda,” he greets blandly.

Hilda pouts. The contrast between her near-playful expression and the incredible weight of her weapon against the Creator Sword is almost dizzying. “Is that all? How disappointing.”

“What were you expecting?” Byleth decides against parrying her next swing, instead leaping to the side, but a second later he finds out he really shouldn’t have underestimated Hilda’s speed—she practically chases after him, and only her weapon’s relatively short length keeps her from ripping his stomach open. “We were never particularly close.”

“Aw, don’t be that way. We were still friends though, right? Or you at least liked my company?” She steps back, keeping her distance, and Byleth does the same. Her stance is nothing like any other warrior Byleth’s encountered throughout the years, which makes sense—she probably developed her own fighting style, one that ensured she could exert as little effort as possible. “After all, there was that whole deal with the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Wow, that was ages ago, huh?”

Byleth dodges her strike at the last minute, but doesn’t expect her to whirl around and lash out with barely a pause in between her movements—her axe cuts into his shoulder, and the sharp, near-familiar pain of a Hero’s Relic wound surges through his entire arm. He barely manages to stay standing rather than buckling down to his knees—even from the fairly shallow cut he can feel the power the Relic radiates, and combined with Hilda’s raw strength—

He remembers now— _Freikugel,_ the Hero’s Relic of the Goneril family, rivaling Edelgard’s Aymr in sheer power. It’s supposed to be deathly heavy and near impossible to lift, even for the Gonerils themselves, but Hilda swings it around like a toy.

She doesn’t let up as soon as her first strike lands, bearing down on him even harder—Byleth parries every blow as best as he can, but Hilda is only getting faster while Byleth can feel himself getting slower with every move. “Give up,” Hilda eventually says, her voice disturbingly cheery. “I don’t want to kill you, you know. It’s not like this is anything personal, after all.”

The Creator Sword creaks under the weight of Freikugel. Pain lances up and down Byleth’s arm, threatening to spread throughout the rest of his body if he leaves it untreated. Byleth grits his teeth—he could probably use magic to get out of this, but he can’t risk letting go of his sword, even with only one hand—

He blinks. Remembers that underground dungeon, when the Creator Sword had bitten into the Death Knight’s leg, the same time Byleth had called on a Nosferatu spell.

Byleth focuses on the heat building up in his palms, and flames climb up the length of his blade, licking at Freikugel’s spikes. Hilda’s eyes widen in surprise, her arms letting up for a split second—just enough time for Byleth to grab Athame with one hand and dig it into her gut.

It takes Byleth a moment to realize he’s never used Athame to hurt before, only to kill. He sees the exact moment dark magic sinks its teeth into Hilda’s body, spreading through her graying veins. Hilda coughs, spits blood, pushes herself up to stand using her axe. “Really?” she asks. “This is pretty mean, even for you.”

“I—”

She lunges, still unexpectedly fast. Byleth is staggering back before he knows what’s happening, and only a moment later does he feel the stabbing pain coursing through his other, previously uninjured arm—her axe had ripped a giant gash down from his shoulder to his elbow, and blood gushes out of the wound.

It’s a hundred times worse than the minuscule nick he had gotten from Miklan, or the injury in his chest from the Death Knight’s scythe, because this time it’s bigger and nowhere near as numbed—Byleth can _feel_ every part of himself screaming for mercy, the warm blood spilling down his arm and onto the ground. He thinks he must gasp, brokenly, because his chest groans with pain. _I can’t let him see,_ he thinks—but who is _him,_ again—?

“Well?” Hilda asks. Her own voice is ragged, weighed down by the dark magic inside her. “Ready to give up yet, Byleth? That… looks like it hurts something awful…” She coughs, and her blood spittles onto the ground.

Byleth’s vision swims, but he stares at the blood anyway. At the stab wound in her stomach, which Hilda clutches to steady the bleeding. At her darkening veins.

He reaches out and _pulls_ at the magic inside her, feels it submit to his control, sees her gasp and crumple to her knees. _Nosferatu,_ he commands, and almost collapses from relief when the pain subsides just enough for him to think straight again. Hilda swings at him again, but she’s weak enough that Byleth can avoid the attack without worrying about a follow-up.

“Surrender,” Byleth hisses, ignoring the way blood bubbles at the back of his throat.

Hilda stares up at him. There’s none of her previous cheerful facade, only a kind of resignment in her eyes that Byleth has seen, time and time again, in the faces of his previous victims seconds before he drives the blade into their chests. Then she sighs, and tilts her head back, exposing the pale white of her neck. “It’s been fun, Claude,” she murmurs, seemingly to herself. “Sorry to go so soon.”

Byleth releases his hold on the magic, sees Hilda’s shoulders slump in relief. “Sorry,” he says, softly. “I know it hurts.”

He brandishes Athame, biting back a groan at the pain that still bites with every movement of his arm. Hilda watches him, motionless, perfectly silent, and for some reason Byleth doesn’t think _this is a trap,_ doesn’t think _she’s Claude’s right-hand,_ doesn’t think of anything aside from how much his arm hurts and how much he doesn’t want to kill her—

Freikugel moves before he even notices Hilda’s standing, and Byleth stills, staring right at the gleaming blade of her axe as it comes closer, closer—

A gust of wind. His hair flutters along with it.

Blood spills down the front of her throat. Hilda gasps, her eyes slipping closed as she wavers unsteady on her feet, then crumples to the ground. The relic falls with her, clattering noisily onto the street. Byleth stumbles back—there’s a gash open on her neck, its depth and size ideal for an instant, painless kill.

When he looks behind him, it’s Linhardt standing there, his gaze blank as he looks down at Hilda’s body. That brief flash of a blade of wind—had it been him? Byleth looks at the injury, so neat and perfectly precise, and then back at his face, completely blank. Had he always been like that, so devoid of emotion after killing someone? No, Byleth knows Linhardt had abhorred murder, despised the idea of a war even after everything, he knows this like how he knows the way his own blood flows, and yet…

_You won’t have to fight. Because I’ll do it for you._

_Sorry… I didn’t want you to see…_

Byleth steps back, almost tripping over Hilda’s arm. Over and over he had been told it had been five years since everything happened, and for over a month now he’s lived with that knowledge—yet its changes have never been more apparent than right now, when he’s looking at Linhardt and seeing his palms spattered with blood he used to so detest.

What use is Byleth’s promise now, then, to always fight for Linhardt and keep his hands clean of red? What use is Byleth himself?

 _Linhardt,_ he doesn’t call. Linhardt spares him a glance, then looks away and disappears back into the fight without another word.

The rest of Derdriu has been taken over by the Imperial army, and Byleth sees Father squaring off against the Almyran general from earlier, engaging him in an intense enough battle that keeps him distracted from the rest of the fight—at the port Claude has taken over stands Edelgard. Byleth hurries to catch up, stopping just beside Hubert a few ways away from her. And in front of them…

Claude hasn’t particularly changed much, Byleth supposes—he still has that familiar smirk, the familiar impish gleam to his eyes, the familiar way he holds his bow. “Well!” He smiles. “We haven’t seen each other since Garreg Mach. You’ve grown lovelier than ever, Edelgard.”

Edelgard, for her part, only tilts her head in mock acknowledgement. “You’re not so unfortunate yourself. And as usual, you’re here at a most inopportune moment.”

“Well, I’m sure we have much more to talk about… But how about we settle things first?”

He nocks his bow the same way he used to back at the academy still, lightning-quick and the arrow fired before anyone sees it coming. Edelgard raises Aymr and cuts the arrow down before it can touch her—Claude whistles lowly and finally kicks his wyvern into moving, and the battle evolves from there. Some of the Almyran soldiers who had stayed behind after their general retreated join in to form a vaguely familiar battalion formation Byleth would probably recognize if he had paid more attention to lectures. Hubert curses and pulls Byleth to the side, just in time to avoid a barrage of arrows; Edelgard waves her arm above herself, conjuring a wall of fire that burns up the attack.

“When did she learn that?” Byleth asks, doing his best to not sound at all surprised.

Hubert gives him a look. “Perhaps if you left your room more, you would know.”

He has a point, which is why Byleth decides to ignore him. Instead he raises his own hand, aiming for the clouds—thunder rumbles overhead, then strikes down one of the wyvern riders when Byleth calls it down. His ears ring from the blast—he watches the soldier and their mount fall into the sea, the splash nowhere near audible. Hubert shakes his head. “The last time you did that,” he drawls, “Dorothea had to heal your poor burnt hands.”

Byleth sniffs. He wouldn’t have minded not hearing for another few seconds if it meant he wouldn’t have had to hear Hubert speak either. “You can’t do that, can you?”

“Is this a competition now?” Hubert stretches out his arm, and a writhing banshee bursts forth to lash its shadows around one of the other wyverns. Even from the ground, its screeches are overpowering, sending vibrations down to the very earth—the wyvern falls dead, crushing its rider beneath it.

Byleth bites down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood, because war should be nothing new, and death should be but an old friend, and killing should be nothing more than a reflex by now, and still, _still—_

Aymr hisses when Edelgard swings it down, as if cutting through the very air itself. Claude soars out of the way, but its blade catches his wyvern’s right wing—it cries out and lists in the sky, threatening to fall entirely. It’s already suffered a number of other injuries from the battle, and Edelgard had only worsened the wound in its wing. From the ground, Byleth can just barely see Claude’s expression soften into something apologetic, his hand stroking the animal’s hide slowly and soothingly as he guides it down to the top of a building, its wings trailing blood behind it all the while.

“Will you continue to stay up there and attack from a safe distance like a coward?” Edelgard shouts, steadying herself with her axe. Byleth sends a Heal spell her way, hoping it’s enough to alleviate the countless cuts and bruises he can see littering her body.

Claude gives her a look from beneath his wyvern’s bleeding wing. “Since you suggested it yourself, I think I will! And if I need to fight like a coward to win, then consider me the meekest little lamb you’ve ever met.”

Edelgard sighs and raises a hand in a gesture too fast for Byleth to follow. In an instant something descends down from the sky, a white speck that rapidly turns into Petra leaping off her own wyvern to position a dagger right above Claude’s throat, who lets out a genuinely surprised yelp. “Whoa, whoa! Easy there—oh, well, if it isn’t Petra. Huh, of course it’d be you after all this time.”

Petra stares at him, but her usual blank gaze is replaced by something softer and sadder. “I apologize,” Byleth sees her say. Her mouth moves deliberately whenever she speaks, making lip-reading easier even from this far away. “I have never wanted to kill you, Claude. Even now.”

Claude huffs out a laugh. “It’s fine. I don’t even mind that you’re holding me at knife point right now.” With Petra rendering his arms immobile, all he can do is drop Failnaught onto the ground and sigh. “Enough already, Edelgard. I know when I’m done. I’m not so foolish as to fight to the death in a losing battle.”

“Do you yield, then? I’m never quite sure if you’re about to lead us into another trap.”

“Oh, looks like she’s still touchy about an academy-issued battle five years ago,” Claude teases. Byleth blinks—it feels strangely nice to hear the lightness in his voice again, even if Byleth knows too well that it’s all fabricated. “But in all seriousness, I can’t surrender so easily. I’m still responsible for the others, after all. Wouldn’t you like to spare me and have me in your debt instead?”

Edelgard glances back at Hubert and Byleth, the former of which exchanges a nod with her. Byleth mostly just stares, because he has no idea what that nod entails and when he looks at Claude all he can really think about is how they had danced during the ball, and how he and Dimitri had teamed up to take Edelgard down in what had once been a friendly rivalry among schoolmates, and suddenly Byleth’s chest _aches_ with pain. Because this shouldn’t be _happening,_ there shouldn’t be a _war,_ the world shouldn’t have become so terrible that a teenage girl on the cusp of adulthood had felt the need to take the continent’s future into her own too-small, too-scarred hands—

“Very well,” Edelgard calls. “Stand down and we will let you go. Provided you will no longer serve as a threat to us.”

Claude heaves a sigh of relief, one he only barely gets to have with how little space Petra’s left in between her knife and his neck. “Thank you, Edelgard. It looks like I’ve read this thing right after all in the end.” Then, in a murmur Byleth has to lip-read to understand: “I’m sorry, Hilda… I promised a sunrise together with you, but it looks like you went ahead of me again…”

Both lords call their armies back, and Hubert slips away to confer with the rest of the generals while Petra and Claude fly back down next to Edelgard. “You may let go of him now, Petra,” Edelgard tells her, eyeing Petra’s hunting dagger warily. “He’s greatly outnumbered down here, at any rate.”

“He is a slippery man,” Petra says, stepping back and sheathing her dagger all the same. “I would not like it if he tricked us right under our noses like last time. Would you, Claude?”

“Wow. None of you ever got over that, huh? It really wasn’t anything personal.” Claude rubs his wrists where Petra had held them in a vice grip, then finally sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Well. Long time no see, you guys. Especially Byleth here.”

 _Byleth?_ He hasn’t heard his full name in Claude’s voice in a long time. “Yes. Hello.”

Claude looks back at him, then does a double-take. “Whoa. What happened to you, huh? I knew you were gone for years after the battle at Garreg Mach, but you look like you came back from the dead. Not to mention the hair. Don’t tell me I’m literally right?”

Byleth scowls. Maybe they should have just left him to die after all. “None of your business.”

“Hm… Still as touchy as ever, I see. Don’t worry, I’m not about to turn around and betray you this time, I can swear on that.”

Edelgard’s eyes narrow. “Careful, Claude. I’d hate to hear a lie in those pretty words of yours.”

“Ah, Her Majesty called me pretty! If I were a lesser man, I’d die happy.” Claude shakes his head, avoiding Edelgard’s death glare. “What do you all want me to do now? Derdriu has fallen and the Alliance has collapsed. Even my prettiest words can’t do a thing to fix what’s happened now.”

“What do _you_ want to do?” Edelgard asks instead, leaning back and keeping a tight grip on her axe. Claude’s gaze follows the motion, ever so subtly. “You’ve surrendered. You have no jurisdiction over the Alliance anymore. You’re free to do whatever you like, as long as you never cross us again.”

“Mm, easy with the threats. I understand you perfectly fine without them.” Claude sighs. “I suppose it’s time for me to leave Fódlan, then. I daresay I’ve spent too long in this place anyway.”

“You’re leaving?” Byleth blurts out.

Claude cocks his head. “Do you want me to stay?” Before Byleth can answer—if he would have been able to come up with an answer at all—Claude speaks again, his tone wistful. “As long as I remain here, the faction of the Alliance that still supports me will continue to oppose the Empire, too. And outside of Derdriu, most of the Alliance is unscathed and ready to join your superior strength. You’ll hardly even have time to miss me.”

Edelgard frowns. “But—”

“But what, Your Majesty?” Claude raises his shoulders in a shrug. “Are you maybe worried about me? You saw the Almyran troops earlier—I do have a life outside this dreadful continent, so don’t be too concerned. I’ll be just fine. And I’ve still got my darling wyvern with me anyhow. In all honesty, I was hoping to become a supreme ruler and lead Fódlan to peace myself. But…” He huffs out a low laugh. “That won’t be happening now.”

“Claude…” Edelgard looks down, sighing softly once more. “You must live off confusing others, don’t you? Even now, I can hardly understand a thing about you.”

“Oh, yes, that’s the goal. Glad to hear I’ve achieved it.” Claude turns to Petra, and offers her a real, genuine smile. “Hello, Princess. How’ve you been? You’ll see I’ve evolved from climbing trees to climbing wyvern backs.”

Petra tilts her chin up to better meet his eyes, returning the smile. “Claude,” she says. “I am proud of you. You have come a long way.”

“Yeah. You and me both, Petra.”

If Edelgard doesn’t awkwardly clear her throat and grab their attention, the silence and staring would probably have gone on longer. “If you’re finished.”

“Of course. But I haven’t even said my goodbyes to Byleth here!” Claude shoots him a smile clearly meant to be charming. Byleth’s not sure if it actually is, or if he’s become so used to it that it just looks like another line on his face now. “You know, it would really help your image if you smiled back just a little bit or something.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Okay. So someone’s been going through something, it seems.” Claude leans forward, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. “Want to tell me about it, Byleth? Maybe I’ll even help you out with… well, this is a personal problem if I’ve ever seen one. Say, you weren’t with Linhardt on the battlefield a while ago, were you?”

“I said it’s none of your business,” Byleth growls, when all he wants to ask is, _How come you get to say his name and I don’t?_

“Poking my nose in other people’s businesses has worked out for me so far.” Claude shrugs again, but this time when he speaks he does so softly, less teasingly. “Take care, alright, By? I’d hate to hear news of you disappearing again but not coming back anymore.”

Byleth sighs. In that moment he sees the Claude he may have begrudgingly called something of a friend back at the academy, the one he bumped into every now and then at the training grounds and taught him how to use a bow and confound the enemy. The one who called— _calls_ him by such an awful-sounding yet strangely-endearing nickname. “Yes. You… You too, Claude.”

Claude grins, then turns back to Edelgard at last. “Your Majesty… no, Edelgard.”

“Claude.”

“I truly do hope you make the world a better place. You know that, don’t you?” His grin shifts into a smaller smile, one that reaches his eyes. “You’ve started on this path. And now I feel like it’s almost time for you to finish it.”

Edelgard says nothing at first, then nods when she looks up to return his smile with one of her own rare ones. “I promise you, Claude. If—When you return to Fódlan… it will be a place worth staying in.”

“Hah! I’ll hold you to that.”

It’s only when he clambers back up on his wyvern, Byleth casting a begrudging Heal spell on its wings, when Petra suddenly steps forward with a familiar glint in her eyes that means she’s bent on getting something done. “Edelgard. Claude. I have… a request.”

Edelgard nods. “Of course. What is—wait.” Her head swivels to face Claude, who looks equally confused. “What about him?”

“I would like to leave the Strike Force,” Petra says. And then, without bothering to give any of them time to recover from _that,_ she turns to Claude and says, “And I would like to travel with you. Wherever you may go.”

For a moment there is only the wind blowing around them, whistling in their ears, and the low bustle of soldiers chattering in the distance. The magic winks out under Byleth’s hands. Then Petra’s words seem to catch up to Claude’s brain, because he laughs awkwardly and says, “Haha. Hey. Uh. Wait. What?”

“I have told you all this before. I have no loyalty to the Empire.” Petra’s voice is matter-of-fact, and though Byleth thinks this should probably bother Edelgard, she says nothing in response. “Fighting in this war has been… difficult. No, even that word is too weak. In our language, we call it _labag sa kalooban._ ”

Claude stares at her. “Against your will?”

Petra brightens, and it occurs to Byleth that this is the first time he’s heard her speak in her native tongue—her stilted, awkward accent had sounded suddenly, perfectly natural. Even if it had been only a second, she had sounded… free. “Yes. But what I want to say is… it goes against my very being. It hurts me to fight.”

Edelgard swallows, her gaze flicking down to the ground. Like this she looks seventeen years old again, hiding her fear behind a literal mask. “Petra, I—I’m sorry, I never—”

“I know. It is fine.” Petra lays a hand on Edelgard’s elbow, giving her a reassuring smile. “I remember when you declared war. You offered me a choice to fight or leave, and I made my decision, did I not? I do not regret it. At the time, I had no other choice. And though I can never fight for the Empire as wholeheartedly as you do, you are still my friend, Edelgard. Nothing will change that.”

“But… you’ll leave?” Edelgard asks, voice small. “Where will you go?”

“I do not know. Someday I will return to Brigid, and bring it up to equal footing with the rest of this world. But for now… I do not know. With him, I suppose.” She turns back to Claude. The sun has begun to come out from behind the clouds, its rays glittering across her face, but she doesn’t bother shielding her eyes from the glare. “That is if you will have me, of course.”

“I—Petra, but… why me?” Claude asks. He sounds _unsure,_ for once. “Even I don’t know where I’m going next. We’d just be going wherever the wind blows.”

“That sounds very poetic.”

“I… Okay. And if I don’t say yes?”

“I told you this before. I will simply have to tie you up and drag you with me myself.”

Claude grins at last, the smile spreading across his face catching the sunlight and reflecting back in Petra’s shining eyes. “Well, don’t worry then. No need to make all the effort.”

Petra hugs Byleth goodbye, and squeezes Edelgard’s hand one last time. “I will come visit. I promise, my friend.”

“When you do, the war will be over,” Edelgard whispers, gripping onto Petra’s one hand with both of her own. Byleth averts his gaze, focusing on healing up Claude’s wyvern—he’s known how vulnerable Edelgard is, how much of that she hides, how much of it is because she’s terrified her friends will leave her. “Will you… Will you forgive me? For everything?”

“You have done a great many things, Edelgard,” Petra says, “but nothing you need my forgiveness for.”

It sounds like a cliché thing, to ride off into the sunset together, like a scene straight out of one of Manuela’s trashy romance novels. But as Byleth watches the two of them on their wyverns slowly becoming mere specks over the horizon—he hopes, terribly, that Petra can speak her language all she wants wherever she goes, and that she’ll always sound that free.

Predictably enough, Byleth’s arm starts hurting again on the way back.

He throws up his best blank face and ignores the pain the rest of the walk—the moment they get back to the monastery, he makes a dash for the best isolated place he can think of where people won’t think to look for him. The stairs up to the second floor have never been more troublesome than right now, when every step jars his bad arm and makes him want to curse his lungs out—but eventually he reaches the library, and the little corner between two bookshelves feels more comforting than even his bed right now.

The Nosferatu spell has never been good for healing wounds the way proper faith magic is—all it does is numb the pain for a few moments, or for as long as Byleth needs it to, and then it comes crashing right back as soon as enough time has passed. He supposes it’s because there’s dark magic somewhere in its composition, but—anyway, he really doesn’t care about the technicalities of magic right now.

He strips off his armor and winces at the blood beginning to soak through his clothes again. He’s never suffered a wound quite this deep before, and he should probably have gone to the infirmary instead of this place, but—

_It’s been fun, Claude… Sorry to go so soon…_

They hadn’t had to kill Claude. So why Hilda? Was she just not as important as the former Alliance leader, who had promised to watch a sunrise with her, in a different world where it was he rather than Edelgard who would rule Fódlan? Byleth stares down at his palms, still smeared with blood that used to belong to someone who will never bleed again.

His hands shake. When had he gotten so weak at the idea of killing, when it used to be all he had known before? Had it been when he had first cast a Heal spell and watched a wound close beneath his fingers—had it been when he had first seen Linhardt stare brokenly at himself and thought, _how wonderful it must be to feel?_

The doors creak open, barely audible above his own thoughts. Byleth blinks the blurriness in his vision away, just in time to watch heeled boots come to a stop before him.

“Why aren’t you getting that treated.”

It isn’t a question, though it probably should be—Linhardt’s voice is too flat for it to sound like anything other than a statement. Byleth shrugs unthinkingly, then has to suppress a flinch when the movement sends a jolt of pain up his arm. “Don’t want to.”

Linhardt crouches down before him, forcing Byleth to look at his face. His expression is carefully blank and his mouth set in a neutral line, revealing nothing once more. “Stay still.”

Byleth does. When Linhardt casts the Heal spell, it feels like it always has—warm and comforting and so wonderfully _familiar_ that Byleth almost melts into it, soaking up the feeling of library books and hot tea. Yet when the foreign emotions trickle in, there’s only the faint outline of concern that Byleth feels, nothing else—there is none of that sunshine warmth he last remembers, the one he’s only ever felt with Linhardt.

So that’s it, then? He’ll never feel that strange emotion anymore? He had never even managed to find a proper name for it, after all this time, and now it’s simply gone because of his own carelessness.

Linhardt pulls away, and the magic fades along with him. “There,” he says, standing back up. “It will still hurt a bit for the next few days, but it will heal by the next fight. Don’t do this again.”

He turns around—and Byleth really, really means to just let him go, to let him walk away because after this long he’s resigned himself to the fact that this is simply how things are, now, and how they forever will be, but then his eyes land on Linhardt’s palms for the first time in a while, and he isn’t thinking when he leaps to his feet and grabs Linhardt’s wrist again, in an action terribly reminiscent of the last time they had been here. “Wait! You…”

“Wh—” Linhardt jerks his wrist away, but Byleth holds fast, ignoring the zip of pain that comes with the force. He can feel Linhardt’s heart beating jackhammer-quick under his skin, and Byleth fixates on the rhythm he himself doesn’t get to have. “What are you…?”

“Your hands.” Byleth lifts them up to chest-level, staring wide-eyed down at the burns and scars littering Linhardt’s once-pale palms. Heat builds behind his eyes, and Byleth hurriedly swallows it back, trying to keep the crack out of his voice when he runs a finger down the old injuries and murmurs, “Why… didn’t you get these treated?”

“I…” Linhardt shakes his head and tries to pull away again, but there’s no real strength behind the action that Byleth doesn’t even need to tighten his grip to keep holding on. “I didn’t want to, either.”

“But now they’re scars.”

“I know.” Linhardt sighs. “I didn’t… I never needed healing on my hands before the academy. You were the first person to heal them for me. So I… if anyone would do the same, I…”

_I’d be reminded of you._

“I’m sorry,” Byleth manages. But he doesn’t know where to go from there, and he feels like he’s been saying the words too much, too many times, that they’ve lost whatever meaning they were supposed to have. “I… I didn’t know what would happen that day. I didn’t know… I…”

Have words always been this complicated, so hard to control? They feel like wild animals, running around in his brain, their enclosure too small to keep them in.

Linhardt’s face softens, but he turns away from Byleth still. “That wasn’t your fault. I wasn’t… I wasn’t fast enough—”

“No!” Byleth unintentionally pulls his wrist again, jerking Linhardt another few steps closer. “That—That wasn’t your fault either. No, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, I just… I’m sorry,” he repeats, hoping he sounds genuine. “I didn’t mean to… to make you feel… to…”

There’s a long pause. When Linhardt finally speaks, he whispers so low that his words are barely audible. “I thought you were dead,” he says. “Because of me. I was the only one there. I should have been faster, should have done more, should have jumped right off that cliff with you… but I didn’t. So the fault lies with me. Please don’t argue any further.”

“But—”

“Didn’t I just tell you not to…” Linhardt sighs. “I see you are as awful at following instructions as ever.”

Byleth looks down. “Sorry.” He is made very suddenly aware of how close they are, with him still holding onto Linhardt’s wrist like a lifeline—before, he probably would have pushed Linhardt back and sent several bookshelves toppling onto the floor. Now he shifts his grip on Linhardt, feeling the boniness of his wrist—he hadn’t been this thin when they’d last seen each other, had he? Byleth wants to feel more of him, touch his face and neck and arms, see what else has changed and what else has stayed the same.

“I don’t remember how long it took us all to recover,” Linhardt continues, still not looking at Byleth. His gaze is fixed on his ring instead, the blue just barely visible in the darkness. _After all this time, he still kept it…_ “Edelgard and the professor took it hardest, of course. As… As well as myself. I…” He pauses. “I had to accept a lot of things. Some of which you probably still don’t know about.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing.” Linhardt sighs. “But now you’re back, from the semi-literal dead, and—did you know, for some reason, I could not stop thinking about your dorm room the moment I saw you again? I kept thinking about how dusty it must be there, and how it would probably take forever to clean because no one wanted to go inside for months, and even now only the professor has been in there a handful of times. He gave me back all the books I gave you. I—” He breaks off with a heavy exhale, and Byleth lightens his grip on his wrist—he hadn’t realized how tight he’d been holding. “So I. I suppose. What I mean to say is—”

“I missed you.”

Linhardt blinks, then angles his head back to stare at him. He hasn’t grown at all, Byleth realizes—well, not that Byleth has grown at all either, but at least Linhardt doesn’t tower over him like Ferdinand now does. “I… was supposed to say that, yes.”

Byleth nods, not quite sure what he’s even agreeing to. “I know I didn’t feel the passage of time the same way everyone else did,” he says. “But if I could, I would have missed you. You and Father and Edelgard and everyone else. And—And even if I couldn’t miss you for the past five years, I… I’ve missed you still, for the past two months.”

“You…” Linhardt averts his gaze, staring back down at their hands. Byleth briefly notes that this is the first time in a long while that they’ve touched each other. That they’ve been near each other at all, really. “I don’t know why I thought you would have changed. You’re still exactly the same after all.”

Byleth leans in a little, taking note of as many details as possible—the new length of Linhardt’s hair, the exact shape of his eyes, how they curve just slightly downward in a way they didn't before. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“For what now?”

“I couldn’t keep my promise. You… You had to do so much. Kill so many.” Byleth traces the line of a scar down Linhardt’s palms, then focuses on a Heal spell. It isn’t going to heal anything, but they’re close enough that he sees Linhardt inhale sharply and his eyes flutter closed for a moment. “But I’m here now. So I… I promise I won’t leave you again. Anyway, if I do, I’ll find a way to come back.”

Linhardt huffs out a laugh that sounds far more miserable than it sounds happy. “That isn’t reassuring at all.”

Byleth pouts. “I’m trying my best.”

“Yes.” Linhardt’s expression softens further into a smile, the first one he’s directed towards Byleth in the past two months—in the past five years. “I know. I… Thank you. For what it’s worth, Byleth, I… have missed you too. Terribly.”

Byleth smiles. The movement is foreign on him after going so long without it, but the strain against his face muscles feels downright blessed. He never wants to not smile ever again, and he never wants to go without touching Linhardt ever again, because now that he is, he only wants to be even closer. For the briefest of moments he thinks about leaning in further, about closing the distance between them—he wants to touch Linhardt everywhere, wants to know how else his body has changed over the past five years, wants wants _wants_ and feels overwhelmed with want.

But he shakes the thoughts away and savors the warmth between their hands instead as Byleth intensifies the Heal spell, then pulls away. Linhardt’s eyes widen and he leans forward for a second, as if chasing after the warmth, before realizing himself and pulling back. “Did you just…”

“Did I what?” Byleth blinks.

“I thought I felt… oh, never mind. Nothing. I must have imagined it.” Linhardt shakes his head, then suddenly reaches around and behind his neck. “And… here. I’ve been meaning to give you this back for a while now.”

“What?” Give _back?_ Byleth doesn’t recall lending Linhardt anything recently, or even five years ago—and why would Linhardt have kept anything from five years ago anyway—

His thoughts abruptly die in his head when he sees the too-familiar violet gem, glittering faintly in the lowlight.

“This is what you were chasing after during that battle, isn’t it?” Linhardt asks, his voice soft. Byleth can’t bring himself to respond right away—instead he stares down at the ring, the thin string of thread he had previously used as a chain now replaced by an actual gold chain, the same color as the lining on Linhardt’s clothes. “I found it just after you fell, and before the archbishop tried blasting me along with you. I… figured if I couldn’t save you, I could at least…”

Byleth swallows. His throat feels thick with something he can’t identify—not blood, not mire. He knows what those feel like, at least, but now this throat just feels thick with emotion so heavy it’s almost corporeal. “This is… It was my father’s. He gave it to my mother.”

“Oh.” Linhardt’s voice is small. “I… I should have given it to him, then. But I’ve… well, I’ve kept it safe for the past few years, so. Here. You can remove the chain, if you want—”

“No. It’s nice. It’ll remind me of you.” Byleth takes the ring, ignoring Linhardt’s sputter, and fumbles with the clasp for a moment before finally stringing it around his neck. The metal is cold against his bare skin beneath his clothes, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever remove it again, nor will he be letting it out of his sight either. “Thank you,” he remembers to whisper.

“You don’t wear it as a ring?” Linhardt asks softly.

Byleth shakes his head. “You didn’t either.”

“I—Well, that’s—Why would I—”

“I’m teasing,” Byleth cuts in, after he’s amused himself enough with Linhardt’s rapidly reddening cheeks. It’s cute, he thinks. Even though he knows how Linhardt blushes—the color starts from his neck then goes up to the tips of his ears—it’s still different seeing him now, five years older but, after everything, no less familiar. “I’m not the one this ring is meant to be on, anyway. It should go to someone else someday, I think.”

Linhardt looks away, pressing the back of his palm to his cheeks as if to will the blush away. “Oh, will it. Do you know who, then?”

“No.” Byleth reaches to touch Linhardt’s free hand again, if only to remind himself that he _can_ touch Linhardt, that he’s here, that they’re both here, that Byleth will do everything in his power to keep the both of them safe and alive and never alone, ever again. “Not yet.”

_But maybe, if I had to pick someone…_

Linhardt casts another Heal spell over his arm and shoulder, easing the ache there. Byleth leans into the touch, sighing a little and resisting the urge to touch Linhardt’s hair too. “I hope you find them,” Linhardt murmurs. “Whoever they are. And that you’ll be happy.”

He sounds strangely sad—but perhaps Byleth’s just imagining that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- originally i was reading petra's wiki page to get a better idea of her character, and then i ended up reading her supports with edelgard, and then i ended up reading her supports with claude, whom i didn't even know had a support with her. so there you have it  
> \- _labag sa kalooban_ is filipino because, listen, brigid is an archipelago (like the philippines) and it is essentially under the control of an empire (like the philippines was) and what i have to say is that i am RIGHT! verdant wind petra is the exchange for crimson flower lysithea!!!
> 
> next chapter: my notes literally just say “change rating to M”


	20. pegasus moon — “what else are you interested in?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I really don’t see anything special about it.”
> 
> Anna snatches the golden apple out of his hand and tosses it back in its basket. “ _You_ just don’t have eyes. It’s that simple. And if you’re not buying, then no touching!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [playing dumb with hand grenades / like they won't blow up in my face](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xyY7gKUf8) _
> 
> check out that sexy new rating. the scene is descriptive but not explicit, but if you'd rather skip it, stop reading as soon as linhardt leaves the room at the end of the last scene (though i suggest reading the last two sentences LOL)  
> as usual, thank you for the feedback, and hope u all enjoy the chapter!!!

“I really don’t see anything special about it.”

Anna snatches the golden apple out of his hand and tosses it back in its basket. “ _You_ just don’t have eyes. It’s that simple. And if you’re not buying, then no touching!”

Byleth sighs and lets her be, moving on to the rest of the display but finding nothing of note—he supposes the various rings would be useful, but they’re far too expensive to buy for each member of the Black Eagle Strike Force. Maybe he should just get a basket of the apples (supposedly blessed by the goddess, although _how_ Byleth certainly doesn’t know) and call it a day. “What do you recommend?”

“Hmm… I’ve got some premium magic herbs you might like,” Anna chirps, retrieving a pouch from her stores. (By _stores,_ Byleth of course means _pockets—_ apparently there’s some kind of spatial magic woven into her clothes that allows her to store absolutely anything inside with little consequence, which means Byleth has indeed stayed up a few nights thinking about how it is entirely possible Anna’s hidden a dead body or five in there.) “Crush into small pieces, then sprinkle on your meal or dissolve in your drink—and voila! Improved magical performance, guaranteed.”

Byleth gingerly takes the pouch and peers inside. To Anna’s credit, it isn’t half-empty like most other similar products in the marketplace and is instead filled to the brim, but they smell something awful. “You’re sure? The last time Hubert had some, he couldn’t leave his room for a week.”

“The tall pale one in all black, right?” At Byleth’s nod, Anna stifles a giggle. “Silly him, those were probably for _faith_ magic, then. Most magic herbs are known to suppress the use of dark magic in favor of improving other fields.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” In retrospect, perhaps Byleth shouldn’t have thought Lysithea and Leonie were being kind and selfless when they gave him the magic herbs, considering Hubert’s always looming menacingly around in the darkness at the dead of night and scaring Lysithea out of her wits. “Well, these _will_ work, right? I don’t want Linhardt hating me again.”

“They’ll do perfect. These are for faith and reason magic both, and the worst he’ll get should be a mild headache while the herbs settle in.” Anna winks. “And—this Linhardt, now he’s the one you always used to be with, right? I remember your little dates in town so well!”

“D—” Byleth sputters. _Dates?_ Since when had _those_ been dates? He just wanted someone else to go with him to help carry purchases (although he supposes Linhardt, of all people, was the wrong person to get that for), and Father was usually busy making lesson plans or giving seminars to the other Houses whenever Byleth planned a shopping trip. So those weren’t… dates, or whatever. Linhardt just always happened to be free, and Byleth just always happened to have enough gold in hand to buy him a slightly-too-expensive-to-be-fair cup of sweet tea.

Okay. Maybe those _looked_ like dates. But they weren’t. Were they? Byleth has no idea. It isn’t as if he’s ever _been_ on a date before. Unless those _counted…_

Anna leans forward, propping her elbows up on the counter of her shop. “If you want a _different_ mix of herbs, I’ve got all kinds, if you know what I mean…”

“What?” Byleth asks, latching onto the conversation to keep himself from thinking about the maybe-dates. “You mean ones to improve dark magic? Don’t those belong in the black market?”

Anna sighs. “Listen, Byleth, you’re my favorite customer and all, but sometimes I just can’t stand you.”

That’s fair. Byleth hums and looks back down at what else Anna has on display, sifting through the bottles of concoctions and vulneraries and trying to calculate how much gold Anna’s going to charge him for some herbs. He glances at a cluster of small boxes, and against his better judgment leans in for a closer look. “These are…”

“Engagement rings or evasion rings, take your pick!” Anna beams. “Oh, right, I’ve got a super-popular promo going on right now. If you can correctly guess what ring is in which box, you can have it for free. Perfect for a Pegasus Moon gift, don’t you think?”

Without hesitating, Byleth plucks one of the boxes up. “Prayer ring.”

Anna blinks. “O… Oh?”

“Prayer ring.” He thumbs the box open and looks down at the familiar accessory. Its gem is a dull, colorless gray, but otherwise it looks exactly the same as his own, along with the box Linhardt had given him for safekeeping. _So he bought it from Anna,_ Byleth thinks.

“How did—” Anna’s gaze flicks down to his left hand, then bows her head and groans in defeat. “Ugh. Should’ve known. You’re an awful cheater, Byleth, but fine! I’m never one to back down from a deal. Go ahead and take it, but know that I won’t forget thi—”

Byleth closes the box and sets it back down on the counter. “It’s okay. I don’t want it. Can you explain how prayer rings are made instead?”

“You don’t want it…” Anna shakes her head. “Oh, Byleth, you’re too innocent for your own good. You know you could have just sold that for a higher price and gotten enough money to, I don’t know—buy more sweet tea? Anyway, what about prayer rings?”

Byleth turns away for a moment, pretending to fuss with his gold while really just doing his best to will the warmth away from his cheeks. “The gem in the middle… What gives them color? Is it really something to do with the goddess?”

“That’s the popular belief.” Anna calls over for one of her assistants to watch the shop, then steps out from behind the counter to stand and stretch beside him. “Okay, I’ve got ten minutes. Come with me and I’ll show you.”

Byleth follows Anna deeper into the marketplace, bypassing the main street and ducking into twisting alleyways that Byleth can’t imagine ever memorizing the way Anna does, navigating the paths like it’s home. Eventually they arrive at some tiny, shadowed corner of one alley, where a small tent has been set up; Byleth wrinkles his nose at the thick smell of incense and burnt herbs. “Here,” Anna says cheerfully, pulling the tent flap back. “Don’t worry, I know the owner. Go ahead.”

“This isn’t a trap, is it?”

“You wound me! I thought you trusted me.”

Byleth shrugs in reply, but ducks into the tent all the same, relieved when he hears Anna follow after him. The smell is a hundred times worse inside, and some sort of fog—mist? smoke?—hangs heavy over the place, obscuring anything more than two inches in front of him. “Hello! It’s me!” Anna calls. “Open for inquiries? This might have been a past order of yours anyway!”

From the darkness of the smoke, an old, dry voice murmurs, “Who goes?”

Byleth clears his throat. “Hello. I wanted to ask about prayer rings.”

“Ah… yes. I see it. Come closer, would you?”

If Byleth closed his eyes, he’d probably still see as much as he would with them open. He steps forward anyway, trying not to knock over any mysterious objects or trip over unidentifiable lumps in the floor, and finally bumps against the edge of a small desk. Behind it sits a hunched old woman dressed in gremory garb from ancient times, one Byleth recognizes from magical history books—she angles her head up to peer at him, and he blinks back when he meets two blank eyes. “Sit, sit. What is your name?”

“Er… Byleth.” He takes a tentative seat before the table, glancing behind him for… he’s not even entirely sure. For moral support from Anna, of all people? Either way, he can’t see her anymore, which must mean she’s loitering around and probably poking at things that look profitable.

“Byleth.” She says his name the same way Byleth imagines the moon comes from behind the cover of clouds: slow, sleepy, promising something nobody yet knows. “I remember. Five years ago… or was it six? Let me see it.”

She doesn’t need to clarify what _it_ is—Byleth holds out his left hand, where the prayer ring glimmers in the faint firelight. Gnarled, wrinkled fingers brush it briefly. “Yes,” she whispers. “A most selfless prayer. Certainly nothing new… but it is always a thrill, to see the color every prayer manifests. And his magic was nothing I’d ever seen before.”

Byleth doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to say right now. He settles for, “What did he pray for?”

The gremory pulls away. “It is not my place to tell you. If he has not told you yet… well, it is only a matter of time. Do not worry. I doubt it will be long.” She tilts her head to the side just slightly, enough that Byleth can see the light reflect against her eyes. “What lovely hair you have, dear. Let me see… if I were to tell you something… it is that the color of the gem takes on a color that means dearly to both parties.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down at the ring, seeing it as if for the first time again. It’s still the same color as ever, a light mint green that matches his hair and eyes. He’s always thought that was just Sothis messing with it somehow—it was a prayer to the goddess, after all, so she probably had some jurisdiction over it—but… something that means dearly to both him and Linhardt?

He lifts his hand up to the firelight, trying to see it from as many different angles as possible. When he turns it to the side… it’s definitely brighter and whiter than it had used to be, looking more like sunlight than anything. But from every other perspective—green. Does that…

“You two done?” Anna asks from somewhere behind them. “Huh, it’s getting noisy outside…”

Byleth opens his mouth— _What does it mean? Does the goddess really have something to do about it? Please—_ but the gremory speaks before he can. “Very well. I do not usually divulge such information to recipients of my work… It is better you speak to him yourself. Farewell.”

She waves a hand, and the smoke thickens further—Byleth coughs and reluctantly retreats backwards, nearly bumping against Anna as she pushes the tent flap open again while bidding goodbye to the gremory. Noise filters in from outside, louder than the usual bustle of the marketplace. “Alright, let’s head back. Sheesh, you think someone got caught stealing or what? It’s not usually…”

“ _Attack! Attack from the north! Everybody run!_ ”

Byleth feels his blood run cold. The Creator Sword—he had left it in his room. If the enemy breaks through their defensive lines—

Anna curses and grabs his wrist, pulling him alongside her as she weaves through the alleyways, taking a different route this time; it takes them a good few minutes before they arrive back at where her shop is, the nearby merchants hastily packing up their wares. “Go! Take the alleys,” she hisses, ushering a crying child deeper into her travel cart. “It must be the Knights of Seiros. If it’s an attack from the north—”

“An expeditionary force will have to be aiming for the secret passageways,” Byleth says, all in one breath, suddenly glad he had started paying more attention to their strategy meetings recently.

“The alleys cover for over half of those. Don’t worry about your big old sword—no one’s going to steal it if you take them out before they come close.” Anna grins, still somehow maintaining her merchant composure amidst this chaos. “Keep them away from us, will you? I don’t fancy having to travel so far to find a new crowd of customers.”

She jumps into her cart, and with a snap of magic it barrels off downtown, disappearing into yet another path Byleth hadn’t seen before.

Edelgard must be leading the charge against one part of the army—if anything, she’s probably found the expeditionary force already, knowing her keen instincts (and also the view the second floor of the monastery provides). Still, it’d be too difficult trying to meet up with her now, with the townspeople evacuating—he’d probably be crushed in the stampede. Byleth chooses an alleyway at random and heads inside, unsheathing Athame and readying his magic.

He’ll just have to trust himself right now.

As he leaves the town further behind him and nears the monastery, the cacophony of people screaming is replaced by the clamor of a battle—Byleth stops in place when a wire fence blocks the way, then crouches down and squeezes through a small hole in the corner someone must have made—and he blanches when the first thing he sees is a plume of fire erupting in the distance and sending up a thick cloud of smoke. _Bolganone,_ his mind supplies—it’s the exact shape the spell forms when it collides with a target.

It’s entirely possible it’s simply an enemy mage, or an ally mage, or—or any mage at all. But Byleth’s first thought anyway is _Rhea,_ and that makes every instinct he has on hand to rear its head and scream for him to fight, to kill, to… to…

“Hey! You!” someone shouts from above—Byleth looks up at Ladislava circling the skies on her wyvern. “Oh—Byleth, right? Lady Edelgard’s old classmate?”

Byleth nods. He likes Ladislava. She reminds him of Petra sometimes, with her perpetual determination to do everything right. “Where can I go?” he asks, already turning back to scan the field as best as he can. There’s an underground tunnel from the outside of the monastery leading inside, and he doubts the enemy would forget about that so easily—

“No!” Ladislava shouts. Byleth looks up, surprised. “This is the attack from the north. Her Majesty has sent the bulk of the Imperial army here, which means your job is elsewhere. Go meet up with the rest of the Strike Force!”

“But—” Byleth looks back out, and another explosion booms in the distance. _Can any of you defeat Rhea?_ he wants to ask—not in a demeaning way, but with the sort of fear that feels cold and creeping. He’s sure the army can at least incapacitate most of the Knights of Seiros, but…

Ladislava smiles, a pained thing. “It is our duty to fight for Her Majesty, whatever the cost. Now go!”

With a tug of her reins, her wyvern swoops back into the skies, then downwards to strike at a group of enemy knights. Byleth’s limbs feel like stone—can he do this? To turn around and abandon people who need help? Logically speaking, he _has_ to leave—wherever the Strike Force is, an expeditionary force might be, and there are far fewer of them than the army right now. But…

Byleth wants to curse as bad as Father. Instead, he ducks back through the wire fence, and picks a direction that leads south.

Seteth is here, Byleth first notices. It isn’t so much as seeing him as _feeling_ his presence—the beat of wyvern wings overhead, the gleam of an axe in one hand and a lance in the other, the flap of dark blue robes against the sky.

Seteth is here. Which means Flayn is, too.

Byleth makes a run for Father, whom he sees facing off against a small group of knights. They must be new recruits, because they don’t hesitate when they see either of them, charging forward recklessly instead. Father’s scowl deepens; he barely looks when he brandishes his lance and impales the men one after the other, Byleth following close behind to slit the throats of those who still try to move. “Father.”

“Kid!” Father whirls around on his horse, which neighs irritably. “Where’d you come from? Ah, hell, that doesn’t matter. Look, right now it’s just the Strike Force and a handful of other soldiers—keep the enemy from breaking through!”

Byleth makes to respond, though he’s not sure what he would have said—but then a too-familiar voice shouts, “You so sure about that, Captain?” and Father’s face falls like a stone in a river.

In front of them approaches Alois, the blade of his axe already pointed towards them. Behind him is Flayn, her sparking hands held before her.

“Alois,” Father says. His voice is flat, carefully devoid of emotion.

“How could you?” Alois shouts, rushing forward—Father wisely avoids trying to block the axe with his lance, and urges his horse out of the way instead, Alois’ heavier armor preventing him from following immediately. “I… We trusted you! Lady Rhea and I both!”

Father shakes his head. “I don’t know if Lady Rhea ever trusted anyone.”

Alois’ hands shake around the handle of his axe, and he roars a battle cry as he charges again, this time catching the flank of Father’s horse—it whinnies and bucks, forcing Father to leap off its back and hurriedly step back before Alois can get another hit in. Byleth doesn’t know what happens after that, because he has to dodge a spell shot his way himself.

“It has been a while, Byleth,” Flayn murmurs. After five years, the angry red burns across her face have faded to a lighter, pinkish color, but still noticeable all the same. “After we last met… I thought you were dead.”

“I was. For a while.”

Byleth holds Athame out before him; Flayn’s eyes widen, and even across the field it isn’t hard to see the disbelief in her expression. “That dagger—the magic, it’s— _no!_ ” she cries, a Seraphim spell charging up in her palms. “What are you thinking, Byleth!? Have you truly… Have you truly abandoned us now? Will you never care for us again?”

It occurs to him that the dark magic imbued in Athame is probably similar, if not exactly the same, as the dark magic Flayn had suffered under when she had been kidnapped, and that realization makes Byleth’s chest sting with the pain of guilt. “Flayn, it isn’t—”

“Enough!” she shouts, her voice trembling at the edges. “I will not listen to the words of a traitor!”

Her spell flies, and Byleth dives to the side to avoid it—the blast catches the hem of his coat, and the cloth disintegrates into ash before his very eyes. It’s then that he remembers _yes, it’s been five years, and no one is the same—_ and though Flayn looks no different from when he’d last seen her, her magic shows more change than the rest of her. _When had she gotten so strong?_ Byleth wonders. _When had her magic gotten so destructive, like…?_

There’s no time to think—he moves out of the way again before her next spell can hit, and aims for her legs with a weak thunder spell. It doesn’t hit, as expected—Byleth had panicked too much, and the spell wavers long enough for Flayn to easily dodge and release more magic. Byleth frowns; if all they do is cast and run, they’ll never get anywhere, and though Flayn is far weaker than him physically, he can’t say the same for her magical prowess, especially compared to his…

He brandishes Athame as if to attack—Flayn flinches back, her spell stuttering before her hands, and it veers wildly off-course to smash into the ground behind Alois. Alois stumbles, and Father follows, knocking him off his legs entirely and jabbing his lance into his arm. “A-Alois!” Flayn shouts. Faith magic flows from her hands to circle Alois’ wound. “I apologize! I—I—”

Father rips his lance out of Alois’ arm, and Alois growls in a mix of pain and frustration. “I don’t want to fight, you two,” he says, backing away to step beside Byleth. “Surrender and we won’t hurt you. I’m serious.”

Alois shakes his head, pushing himself back up. “Why—Why does it have to be like this, Captain? After all that time—when you arrived back to the monastery, I—I thought I could look forward to working alongside you again! And now—”

“Alois.”

“And now you want to kill Lady Rhea?” Alois shouts, raising his axe the moment the Heal spell around his arm fades along with his wound. “Why? Why don’t you understand?”

“Goddess damn it—why can’t _you_ understand?” Father snaps, unflinching in the face of the axe—he steps forward in response, and Byleth hurries to follow in an effort to look similarly intimidating. “I left the Knights of Seiros those twenty-odd years ago _because_ of Lady Rhea! After my wife died, after I saw a child who never laughed and never cried—how could I bring myself to trust her again? _Tell me!_ ”

Their weapons clash—Father’s lance snaps clean in half, but Alois’ downward momentum gives Father plenty of time to grab one of his shorter spears and bury it into his shoulder. Blood spurts out when the spearhead comes out the other end. “Don’t, Alois,” Father whispers, closing his eyes against the wound as Alois swears again, his axe digging into the ground beneath them. “I don’t want to kill more than I already have.”

“Alois!” Flayn exclaims—another Heal spell readies itself at her hands, but Byleth fires another bolt of thunder towards her wrists, enough to distract but not to hurt. She screams in frustration and whirls around to face him, her Seraphim spell glowing so bright it hurts. “Stop holding back, Byleth! You set the library on fire, you stole the Caduceus Staff from me—do you not want to kill me, too!?”

 _No!_ Byleth wants to shout— _No, of course not, why would I ever want to kill you? Why would I ever want to kill you, or Seteth, or Alois, or anyone but the system the Archbishop has set up?_

But what can he do, when he can say nothing to defend himself against the burning of the library those years ago—when he knows too well that the healers take turns using the sacred staff when tending to the severely injured? Byleth knows he has to kill Flayn if he wants to win this war—but he has never wanted to turn tail and flee the battleground so much in his life. “Flayn,” he manages, brokenly, and gets no further than that.

The Seraphim spell flies towards him. It’s too close to dodge—Byleth only has time to throw Athame up to shield his face, and then—

 _Oh,_ he thinks, numbly— _this is how it felt in the library._

The magic explodes against him in a blazing burst of searing light. The dark magic in Athame repels most of it from his face, but the light that finds it way across his arms and chest sends pain burning all the way down to his bones. Someone is shouting nearby, and it takes Byleth several long seconds to realize it’s him when he looks down and sees the skin on his knuckles flaking off, the scar tissue on his once-burnt wrist rising as if summoned by a familiar sensation.

 _Byleth,_ someone screams. Father? Byleth blinks the glare away from his eyes, and sees Flayn standing before him, her hands shaking, her face desolate. “It’s okay,” Byleth finds himself saying, somehow, “it’s okay, I’m sorry, it’s my fault…”

Sound returns all at once, and then Father is there, catching him before he falls to the ground. “You—” He turns his glare onto Flayn, who’s still standing there, still _staring_ at Byleth, and there’s a burn on her still-smoking palms that hadn’t been there before.

“Flayn! Nice job!” Alois shouts. Father turns to face him, only Alois isn’t where he had been anymore, instead having hobbled closer to where another Knight of Seiros seems to have been waiting. “Now—light it up!”

Father’s eyes widen. “No! Alois, don’t!”

Alois glances back, only long enough to meet Father’s eyes, and—Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever seen the usually-jolly knight so sad before. “I’m sorry, too, Jeralt,” he says, only barely audible above the sudden yells of the other knights. “Maybe in a different life, things wouldn’t have turned out like this.”

Then he turns back around, shouting for Flayn to follow, and runs off into the outskirts of the monastery just as the field goes up in flames.

Through the haze of smoke and pain, Byleth just manages to make out silhouettes around him—Father, still holding onto him to keep him upright—enemy knights and ally soldiers alike, running frantic all over the place—Flayn, stumbling over debris and landing hard on her already-scraped hands. Flame-lit torches are dropping all around them, sending up white-hot, suffocating flames, and for a moment Byleth thinks of a dim lantern, old books, a library—

“ _Flayn!_ ” he hears, and without looking he knows it’s Seteth overhead, diving straight down but _no, he won’t be fast enough—_

Byleth breaks free from Father’s grip and lunges for Flayn, shoving her aside before one of the torches can fall on her—they roll and tumble across the ground, and Byleth desperately wants to black out right now, if only to escape the pain of several sharp rocks digging themselves into his burnt skin. Flayn cries out in alarm, trembling beneath him when they come to a stop. “Are you—” Byleth coughs. “Are you okay?”

No response—Flayn only stares up at him, fearful and disbelieving at once, until finally she scrambles away from him and props herself up against a boulder, running towards Seteth the moment he jumps off his wyvern and wraps her in his arms.

Father runs over to them as well, patting down a part of his clothes that had caught on fire. “Byleth! Kid, are you crazy? Your skin’s—” He blanches and holds onto Byleth’s covered shoulders rather than his arms, doing his best to steady him.

Despite his efforts, Byleth wobbles and leans on Father once more. “It looked dangerous…”

“You—” Seteth looks up from Flayn, his gaze sharp and assessing. Father curses under his breath and tugs Byleth away a few steps, but Seteth does nothing aside from stand. “You saved her. Again.”

Byleth attempts a shrug. He’s not sure what it comes out looking like, but probably not very close to a shrug.

Seteth shakes his head. Flayn stays close to him, clinging to the edges of his clothes. “I… I see now. What you are fighting for… you truly believe in it, do you not?”

“Yes,” Father answers. Again, nothing close to hesitation—Byleth wishes he could have that much conviction all the time, when people must have questioned his and Edelgard’s beliefs for the past five years. “I never will stop believing in it either, Seteth. Even if that means having to face off against you.”

Unexpectedly enough, the corners of Seteth’s lips quirk upwards in the quickest, shortest facsimile of a smile—and then it’s gone, quick as it had come, and Byleth wonders if he had just imagined it. “Yes. I thought so. The truth is, we… have also begun to have our doubts, about Rhea and what she herself wishes for the good of Fódlan.”

Father stares. “You mean…?”

“We will not join your side, no matter how you try to convince us,” Seteth interrupts. “But we cannot bring ourselves to follow Rhea on her current course either.”

Flayn dusts off her sleeves, looking studiously down at the ground. “She is not herself,” she whispers. “We fear something else has taken over her. Or that… that she was always like this, and it is only now that her true form decides to make itself seen.”

“Though we owe her a great deal, we now also owe you the same debt. You have saved Flayn’s life—and mine, by extension—twice now.” Seteth sighs. “Even if I were not already tolerant of you both, I could not in good conscience raise my weapon against you.”

“Tolerant?” Father repeats dryly. “Coming from you, Seteth, that’s you admitting how fond you are of us.”

Seteth clears his throat. “Silence. As I was saying—”

“He didn’t deny it,” Byleth notes, somehow managing to pick the detail out from the fog of pain still enveloping his body.

“ _As I was saying,_ ” Seteth continues, “let us… make a promise. It may not change anything, with the state of the war as it currently is, but… we have been thinking of going into hiding. Abandoning Rhea, if you would.” He says those last words with a furrow in his brow and guilt tingeing his voice. Beside him, Flayn glances up only to cast her gaze downwards again. “It is shameful. Beyond that, really. But I feel it is the only way the two of us can live our lives the way we want to.”

Father’s grip loosens just slightly on his bloodied spear. “You’re telling us to let you go?”

Seteth turns away, expression pulling tight into a frown. “I almost envy you, Jeralt. You are so sure of your beliefs that to tear away from them now seems unthinkable. Yet I… I cannot stand by Rhea any longer. Does that make me a coward? Maybe to others, but I refuse to think so. Not when I care more about the safety of my family than the fate of a country that will, in time, sew itself back together. Right now, Fódlan has no need of us. And we have no need of it.”

Instead of responding with something just as deep and thoughtful, Father just leans back, adjusting his grip on Byleth and asking, “Where do you plan to go? There’s Almyra, Brigid, Dagda… and further than that. There are dozens of places the gods have left for us to find.”

Again, that ghost of a smile—except this time it stays in place longer, and Byleth finds himself openly staring at it like he’s gawking at an exotic animal. “Indeed they have. Perhaps we will have enough time and freedom to discover them all.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t let this little war stop you, then.” Father lets his arm drop down to his side, the point of his spear facing away from Seteth and Flayn. “Let’s go, kid.”

“Just like that?” Byleth asks, turning around—Seteth is already tugging on Flayn’s wrist, urging her to follow him on his wyvern’s back. “It isn’t safe. Rhea could find them, and…” He trails off, unsure of what exactly she would do—based on Seteth’s words, she sounds even more dangerous and unhinged than he remembers.

Flayn turns around too, and their eyes meet. For a moment Byleth almost shrinks back, the burns on his skin flaring up as if on cue—but then Flayn’s eyes glimmer wetly in the firelight, and she holds her hand out, palm open.

A pleasant chill settles across his arms, long enough to numb the pain—then the light of the Heal spell fades, and then the wyvern is soaring up into the sky, its wings beating back the columns of smoke that have begun to rise.

Father shakes his head. “Yeah. Just like that.”

“But…” Byleth stretches his arms out—the pain will return, he knows, but for now it’s enough for him to keep fighting without risking further injury. Yet there’s an emptiness inside him, as if a hole has been carved out within his chest, and he thinks of the fleeting sensation of that last, final Heal spell, of the phantom smile Seteth so rarely lets others see. “But they…”

He doesn’t know what to follow that up with. But they… what? If he’s being honest, he doesn’t even know who they are, only that they’re Seteth and Flayn, and that they could very easily have killed both Father and Byleth where they stood. But they didn’t.

“That’s what war’s like,” Father murmurs. “There are no winners here. Just people who lost, and people who keep losing.”

They trudge onwards, readying themselves for battle in the fiery chaos once more.

Byleth watches Randolph die.

As soon as he drags himself into the entrance hall, the lower half of his leg a bloodied mess, Byleth knows there’s no hope. Somehow he knows he shouldn’t bother—trying to heal him now would only be a waste of effort and magic—but he drops to Randolph’s side anyway, calling up energy for a Recover spell. But he isn’t prepared for the pain that bursts within him as soon as he lays his hands on Randolph’s leg—it’s explosive, horrifying, burning from inside out and spreading throughout his entire body.

 _Catherine,_ he recalls. Catherine must have been there—she went where Rhea did. And this pain, one Byleth only remembers from injuries caused by Hero’s Relics…

“Your Majesty,” Randolph gasps, crumpled on his knees. “I… I am so sorry…”

“Silence,” Edelgard orders, but her voice is far from firm and she kneels beside him as well. “Speaking will only worsen your injuries—healers! More healers here, please!”

Randolph laughs, a broken sort of sound that makes the pain a hundred times worse. “Don’t, Your Majesty. I can’t be saved… you must know that. Ladislava has also passed—” He’s interrupted by a bout of coughing, each one feeling like knives clattering in Byleth’s chest. Edelgard looks devastated. “But the enemy has withdrawn. You… are safe now…”

Perhaps it would be inaccurate to say Byleth watched Randolph die. There is a strange disconnect between Byleth and his magic, for a long second, and it takes him a moment to realize he is feeling Randolph die.

Something tells him to pull away, to stop, to break the link between the two of them right now, but for some reason Byleth can’t _move—_ all he can feel is the pain, beginning to ebb and subside like waves retreating meekly from the shore—an emotion that feels like how it looks when the sky is graying in preparation for a storm and Byleth can smell the ozone in the air—and a thought that rises in his head, whether his or Randolph’s he cannot tell: _ah, so this is how it feels to die._

And then, as fast as it had come—nothing.

The magic fades beneath his palms. The pain already feels like a far away memory.

“Again,” Edelgard whispers, her fists clenched so tight they shake atop her thighs. “Another death on my watch… how much more blood must I spill? How many more people must die for me?”

The hall is silent. Byleth stares down at his hands, at the body, at the pool of blood beginning to soak into his coat.

Edelgard exhales heavily, then rises. Even at her full height, Byleth doesn’t have to look up much to meet her eyes, dark and shadowed. (Had the shade of lavender always been that wrought with darkness? Or had Byleth just never paid much attention in their academy days, and only now is he seeing something he should have known long ago?) “Byleth,” she says. “I… I’m sorry you had to…”

He shakes his head. Speaking sounds like a more appropriate response, but he can’t bring himself to open his mouth.

“Go to the infirmary,” Edelgard eventually says. The words are an order, but she only sounds tired, weary, exhausted. “Every available healer is needed there. I… I shall find Hubert.”

She bends down to close Randolph’s eyes and wipe the blood off his forehead—then turns around and leaves the hall, each of her steps heavier than the last.

Byleth stares down at his hands. At the body.

Then stands, and goes to the infirmary.

There are more dead than injured. There are more he couldn’t save than those he could.

It feels rather cruel. What was the point of a Heal spell, if it could heal nothing? What was the point of faith magic, if there was nothing to believe in? What was the point of _him,_ a healer with nobody to heal? Byleth wants to become more than some vessel for a dead goddess, wants to have enough power to rip the entirety of this war out of the land and throw it into the nether. He wants to tear the memory of death out of his head and hands and useless heart, and never have to relive it again and again with each soldier that dies before him.

There are other healers in the infirmary, of course—Manuela, Mercedes, Dorothea, Lysithea. Linhardt, too. Every single priest in their ranks—the ones who hadn’t been cut down by an unexpected attack, that is. But in the end, more people enter the infirmary than those who come out of it.

The hours blur into something uncountable, incomprehensible—when finally the beds begin to empty, Byleth doesn’t wait for permission to leave. His palms burn with the overuse of magic, and the pain from the earlier Seraphim spell has begun to return. When no one is paying attention, he slips out of the infirmary and rushes down the stairs to his dorm room, where blessedly enough no one is waiting outside of to speak to him about something he can’t care less about. Byleth draws the curtains, locks the door, checks the Creator Sword (safe, beneath the window), and curls up in bed within the same minute.

He probably should have asked someone to take care of his arms, now that the burning is making itself known with newfound vengeance, but—Byleth closes his eyes and focuses on the pain, letting it distract him from the rest of his thoughts.

In a haze of dusty dreams swimming through his head, filled with the constant burn upon his skin, he hears a knock on the door.

“Byleth? You… are in there, aren’t you?”

Byleth stares blankly at a speck of dirt on the floor, wondering how much effort it would take to tell whoever it is to go away. Maybe he should just stay silent—the door is locked, and it isn’t as if they’d break it down if he didn’t answer. That sounds far less tiring, too.

Then his mind catches up to his ears, and he realizes whose voice that is. “Linhardt?”

“Yes. It’s me. I’m glad it only took you that long to recognize my voice.” A little pause. “Will you let me in? Or would you rather I stay outside?”

“No, it’s okay.” It isn’t, really—Byleth wants to be alone right now—but at the same time, there was a warmth and comfort that only Linhardt’s presence could provide, and that sounds like something he desperately needs, too. He waves a hand at the door, trying to utilize a weak Wind spell just strong enough to unlock it, but the magic ends up slamming into his doorknob, ripping it from the door and flinging it halfway across the room.

Silence. “What was _that?_ ” Linhardt asks. One of his blue eyes peers in at Byleth from the brand new hole in his door. “Did you just rip your doorknob off?”

“I… didn’t mean to?”

Linhardt sighs, then pushes the door open and steps inside, his eyes landing immediately on the doorknob, now sitting forlornly on top of some undone laundry. “Did you try to use a Wind spell? You have far less control on reason magic than you do on faith magic, I see.”

Byleth rolls on the bed so his back faces Linhardt. “I didn’t think it would be so strong,” he grumbles, hoping Linhardt doesn’t think Byleth had tried to do that because he’d seen Linhardt do the same so effortlessly dozens of times before. “What are you here for?”

“For you. What else?” The bed dips, and Byleth shuffles under the covers until only the upper half of his face is seen, blinking up at Linhardt sitting beside him. “You weren’t exactly subtle, sneaking away like that. But it did give me the idea to do the same, so.”

“You shouldn’t have. They probably still need healers.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Byleth shrugs, the motion just barely seen under the blankets. “I just… I wasn’t helping.”

Linhardt tilts his head. “How so?”

“I couldn’t… Every time I tried to heal someone, they… always died.” Byleth turns away to stare at the wall beside his bed. “It isn’t my fault. I think. Faith magic can’t bring someone back from the dead, after all. But… it still feels like it is, anyway. And—” He swallows. “You know how it feels like, right? When someone dies, but your magic keeps the link between you two still, and then it’s just…”

He trails off, partly because he’s unsure of how else to describe it and partly because he can’t bring himself to speak any more—just the memory of it makes his chest ache, makes him want to close his eyes and die like the rest of them.

Linhardt sighs again, then places a hand atop Byleth’s head. “Sit up?” Byleth does so, reluctantly, the blankets sliding down to gather on his lap, and Linhardt moves his hands to hover atop the burns on Byleth’s arms. “You were hurt the whole time you were healing, weren’t you.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“These are burns from a Seraphim spell. If it had hit your face, it would have incinerated your eyeballs.” Magic gathers at Linhardt’s palms, and Byleth melts into the sensation. The pain falls away, replaced by a vague mix of emotions he can just barely identify: worry, fondness, uncertainty, exhaustion. “I know healing others is important, but you can hardly do any of that yourself if you refuse to get healing in return.”

Byleth’s not sure what to respond with—so he just hums in acknowledgement, leaning closer to Linhardt when Linhardt touches his knuckles with the very tips of his fingers, healing the burnt skin there as well. “Thank you,” he remembers to say when the magic fades. Byleth flips Linhardt’s hands palm-up to cast his own Heal spell over the blisters there as well.

“It’s fine.” Linhardt looks down at their hands, and Byleth can feel the tension in Linhardt’s chest uncoil just slightly. “Healing… so many take it for granted. It’s rare someone who isn’t a healer themselves understands how exhausting it is.”

Byleth nods. “You’re fine with it? All the… death.”

It’s quiet. Linhardt doesn’t answer right away, his gaze fixed on Byleth’s wrist instead until the magic stops. “It’s been five years, Byleth,” he murmurs. “Plenty of time for me to become accustomed to it.”

“Oh.” Byleth looks down. Right—he should have known. He keeps forgetting so much time has passed. Five years _sounds_ long, but even if he tries to account for every single change in every single person he knows, he doesn’t think he will ever truly be able to understand the passage of time as personally as the rest of them do. Not for the first time, it feels unfair—to have five years of everyone’s lives ripped away from him when he thought he would always be with them.

Linhardt shakes his head. “Never mind that. You’re still tired, aren’t you?” At Byleth’s nod, he stands and heads towards the door. “Don’t move, then. I’ll be right back.”

Byleth tries not to visibly wilt. The warmth Linhardt had provided is already beginning to fade. Even if he says he’ll be quick, Byleth can’t help but fear every time they separate from each other—maybe it’s simply the sight of Linhardt’s back getting further and further that scares him so. “Okay.”

When Linhardt returns with an assortment of notes in his arms, though, Byleth really should have expected that. “Research? Now?”

“I’ve been curious since you returned, you know,” Linhardt says, dumping the notes on Byleth’s bed like he owns it. Byleth supposes it’s his room’s turn to suffer the demonic beast that is Linhardt’s organizational skills—in fact, perhaps he should be a little surprised it had taken this long. “After all, how ever did the goddess protect you? And however did you sleep for five years without any sustenance whatsoever? Nothing except your hair has changed. Plenty of factors to research on.”

“To answer you now, I don’t know anything about any of the questions you asked,” Byleth says. “So don’t be disappointed when you find nothing.”

Linhardt’s eyes gleam. “You underestimate me.”

Byleth doesn’t really do much, just sits there and lets Linhardt examine him from a hundred different angles while idly sifting through the notes on his bed. They’re all on, as expected, Crests—ancient ones, ones lost to history, ones Byleth had never even heard of. There are loose sheets of paper that tackle faith magic, but rather than the theory Linhardt is so fond of, these deal more with application—how to reattach a limb back to a body, how to draw blood out of someone’s filled lungs. Gruesome injuries one only ever encounters in war.

“What made you want to study Crests?” Byleth decides to ask, after having to half-answer several other questions he doesn’t even remember the words of.

“Hmm?” Linhardt looks up from whatever he’s writing. “I suppose I just grew interested in it all of a sudden. I don’t really remember how it happened… though that’s a common factor in most of my interests. They just happen. I’ve learned not to question it.”

“Oh.” Byleth bares his neck when Linhardt asks him to, and tries not to squirm under the finger Linhardt presses against his pulse point. He’s so _close…_ “What else are you interested in?” Byleth hurries to ask, just to distract himself from the heat beginning to creep up his cheeks.

Mercifully enough, Linhardt backs away, noting something else down on his notes. “Fishing. Magic. You. Books. Nothing you don’t already know.”

Byleth sputters. “W—What was that one in the middle?” Had he just misheard?

“Magic?” Linhardt looks up, tapping a pen against his chin. “Never mind that. When were you going to tell me you didn’t have a heartbeat?”

“Um… sometime,” Byleth lies. 

“Very convincing. Almost as convincing as your prophetic dreams. Did you have any more since you came back to life?”

“Um… no,” Byleth lies, again. He’s had to use a Divine Pulse a few times during battles, to get to soldiers in time to heal them or push them out of the way of an attack.

Linhardt sighs. “Be that way. Well… that’s rather interesting. Your heart does not beat, but you’re here. Has it always been this way?” When Byleth nods, he _hmm_ s again and returns to his notes, rapidly scrawling away. “So you’ve never… but then how… ah, perhaps…”

Byleth returns to the notes, knowing when nothing will distract Linhardt from whatever he’s doing. He skims through all the passages about Crests and magic, just barely understanding the awful handwriting, and blinks when he reaches the bottom of the pile—there are a few sheets tied together haphazardly, and though the penmanship is still very much Linhardt’s, it’s also noticeably… well, neater. And more legible. Byleth peers closer: some letters don’t look like letters at all, but rather…

He stills. He’s seen these symbols before—both times on the insides of rings. The ancient language.

“Which one are you reading?” Linhardt suddenly asks, and Byleth stamps down a jolt of surprise. “Not that you can read any of them, anyway. I’ve been told only I can decipher my writing. Which was hilarious, coming from Caspar…”

Byleth attempts a casual shrug and discreetly slides over to the paper just above the ones on the language. “This one about, um…” As usual, Linhardt’s handwriting is atrocious, so Byleth’s gaze latches onto the most attention-grabbing illustration on the paper instead. It’s… nothing he recognizes, certainly. It looks like a monster straight out of a nightmare, black and hulking and with strange protrusions at its back that look like deformed wings… Hm, hasn’t he seen this before? The more he looks at it, the more it seems familiar to him—

It’s only when he sees its claws, and the black liquid that drips from beneath its nails, that Byleth realizes it’s _him._

“Ah, yes,” Linhardt says, very softly. His hand twitches as if to take the papers away, but in the end he lets his hand drop. “I… suppose you deserve to know how you looked like, that time.”

“This was me?” Byleth asks, willing his voice not to shake. It isn’t as difficult as he expected, but he can feel the familiar fear bubbling up in his chest again, as similar to mire building up in his throat as it can get. “When I… I…”

“That’s just a rough sketch, but yes.” Linhardt’s voice is not gentle, just as neutral as it always is, and Byleth appreciates it—he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle pity right now. “I’m no artist, so I couldn’t quite capture the details. But, hmm, if I had to describe it…” He shoots Byleth an inquiring look, as if asking for his permission, and continues when Byleth nods. “I suppose… it looked like your body was turned inside out. Like your bones and muscles replaced your skin.”

Byleth makes a face. “That’s disgusting.”

“Simply an observation,” Linhardt says, though a hint of a smile curves his lips. “It was… certainly frightening, yes. It still is, really.”

Byleth sighs, squinting down at the notes scribbled on the paper. There are some legible words and phrases he can catch here and there— _excess of dark magic, harmed by healing spells, Solon & Kronya possibly undergoing the same process_—but none that he can really glean any new information from. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I know it’s been five years, but… I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been forgiven for a while now.” Linhardt’s hand brushes against his as he traces the words he’d written so long ago with his thumb. “Talk about something else?”

Byleth looks at the drawing of himself one last time before he scans through the rest of the papers. Most of them are old, fraying at the edges and yellowed by age, many short and filled with question marks. “What do you plan to do with your findings, after the war?”

“My findings…” Linhardt sighs. “I’ve been thinking about that too, recently. It doesn’t seem like my research has any use outside of war, does it? Certainly there are Crests that make you stronger, and that can be used in engineering… and Crests with healing properties that can help with doctors. But the possibilities are limited, aren’t they? It’s as if they were designed to be used in times of war. It’s a little sad thinking about it, that my research will all be for naught after this.”

“So…” Linhardt’s sitting on the edge of his bed while Byleth himself is on the other side, but Byleth inches closer to speak. “When you think about it like that, do you still want to research?”

“Yes.” Linhardt shrugs. “It has always been interesting. But then my interests bounce from one thing to the next, so perhaps Crests have just lasted longer than usual. Eventually I might tire of them, too, and move on to the next thing that catches my eye.” He gives Byleth a look at that, as if wondering what else might be interesting enough to study. “Then again, if I stop researching Crests, I’ll have one less excuse to spend time with you.”

Byleth feels his neck warm again. “Huh… what?”

“What, what?” Linhardt huffs. “It’s rare I find someone who actually listens to me, you know. Even after all this time, I haven’t quite found someone who listens like you. Most others just nod and smile as though my blathering matters any to them.”

“I—That’s not true,” Byleth stammers. “I… I don’t listen to others that well at all. I space out in the middle of conversations.”

“Very brave of you to admit that,” Linhardt says, rolling his eyes, “but you didn’t mention anything about listening to me.”

“Ah… Well, that’s…”

“I’ve been around enough people who don’t hear a word I say.” Linhardt rests his hand atop Byleth’s, and the touch is so terribly comforting that Byleth stops trying to think of arguments. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t even know why he’s protesting when he knows he does listen to Linhardt as much as he can, even if he doesn’t always understand what he says. “Trust me when I say I know what a person looks like when they do.”

Afterwards, Linhardt concludes he’s done enough research for today (which he has—Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever dodged so many questions before) and proceeds to lounge on Byleth’s bed, which is much harder than it sounds considering he takes up so much _space._

He does play with Byleth’s hair, though, and it feels nicer than it probably should. “I’m surprised you haven’t cut this yet. Doesn’t it get in the way during battle?”

“Not really. For some reason.” Byleth suspects that if there’s one part of his body Sothis cares about, it’s his hair. Somehow it always magically manages to avoid being pulled, stepped on, hacked off, or tangled in every battle he gets into, no matter how much it waves around behind him like the worst battle flag he’s ever seen in his life. “Must be protected by the goddess.”

“Hmm, that makes sense. The goddess was always depicted with long hair.” A pause, as Linhardt begins to gather more of Byleth’s hair in his hands. “I… keep forgetting you… actually do know what she looks like.”

“She had long hair.” Byleth leans back to make it easier for Linhardt. Whatever he’s doing, anyway. “It was messier than this, though. Mine’s straighter. She was always telling me off for not combing my hair properly.” He frowns. “I don’t even have a comb.”

“What? So your hair just magically combs itself, then?” Linhardt asks, sounding affronted. “Unbelievable. If I knew merging with the goddess would instantly grant me smooth hair that fixed itself, I would have started taking choir practice more seriously all those years ago.” He runs his fingers down Byleth’s hair, and Byleth sighs at the soothing motion—it really has been too long. “It’s a shame you don’t do anything with it, though, when it’s so nice… alright, stay still.”

Byleth makes to turn around, only to be forced to face back when Linhardt nearly shoves his shoulder forward. “Don’t move! This will just be a moment. You’ll like it, I promise.”

“Er. Okay.”

He reads through the notes again while Linhardt does… _whatever_ with his hair. Since he’s behind him, Byleth quickly pulls out the papers he had seen earlier, readying a different sheet to hide them with in case Linhardt looks over his shoulder, and squints at the letters painstakingly written down. The ancient language… There were a few books on it in the library, but those are all gone now, and Byleth had never had the time to fully study them.

Byleth slips his ring off his finger and looks inside. The engraving is familiar by now, after staring at it so often, but the symbols had never made sense. He looks back down at the papers—it seemed the ancients used a syllabary rather than an alphabet, the curling symbols so unlike Fódlan’s language. He finds the first symbol on the engraving— _hi,_ it’s pronounced. Then the next— _no_ —then the next— _mi…_

“All done.” Linhardt’s hands fall away from his hair, and it takes Byleth a moment to realize most of the hair that had dangled at the sides of his face are gone, instead… tied behind his head? “There. It looks like mine, but as a tail instead of a bun,” Linhardt cheerfully says. “I’ll even lend you my ribbon for now, at least until you can find something else.”

“Wha…”

Byleth stares at his reflection in the windowpane—it’s tied exactly the same way Linhardt does his own hair, complete with the promised ribbon. It looks… nice. And though it’s still ridiculously long, it doesn’t obscure his peripheral vision as much anymore.

“Oh,” he says. “It does look like yours.”

Linhardt beams. Byleth doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen Linhardt so openly happy like this. “Doesn’t it? I’ll teach you how to do it next time, if you like. Then you can fix my hair. I absolutely hate having to do it in the mornings.” Unexpectedly enough, he reaches to touch the back of Byleth’s neck, fingers feather-light over his skin. “I wish my hair were as easy to take care of as yours.”

“Oh…” Byleth thinks about doing Linhardt’s hair like this, so close and so strangely _intimate_ that just the thought of doing it makes breathing several times harder than it should be. On a whim he turns around and grabs Linhardt’s wrist, the one not touching his neck, and—

Well. Now he doesn’t actually know what to do.

Linhardt looks up at him in obvious confusion, slowly pulling his hand away from Byleth’s neck but not otherwise doing anything. “What is it?”

“I, ah… I just…” Byleth swallows. He wants, desperately, for Linhardt to do that again—to touch his neck, to do his hair, to come as close as physically possible, and then closer than even that. He wants to feel Linhardt’s sleep-warm skin against his own, wants to share the same air with him, wants to feel the rapid beat of his heart at his wrist. He has never known a desire as _base_ as this, as vast and as boundless and as all-encompassing.

But Linhardt—only stares at him, very clearly not understanding. “Just…?”

Byleth drops his hand. The skin burns where he had held Linhardt. “Never mind.”

“Are you sure? You looked like you were going to say something.” Linhardt touches his hair again, absently carding his fingers through the strands.

Byleth shakes his head, and Linhardt’s hand falls away. “It was nothing. You can go.”

“Oh. I…” Linhardt blinks, and for a moment he looks strangely… no, Byleth can’t tell what the emotion on his face is. “Alright. I mean, I wasn’t going to… Alright. Well, feel better soon?”

Byleth wants nothing more than to pull him back, to tell him to _stay, stay right here with me, come closer, touch me again,_ but—what would Linhardt think, if Byleth forced him here against his own volition? If Byleth touched him again, in a way he didn’t like—what then? Byleth almost moves, almost calls his name and asks him to stay longer, because he wants Linhardt’s warmth, wants the heat that slides between their fingertips and the heat of his breath against his neck—

“Okay,” Byleth says. “You too.”

He stares at the ceiling again once Linhardt leaves the room. It’s cold, even under the blankets, and Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to punch himself more than right now. Why had he done that? He’d panicked at the unfamiliar feeling and essentially told Linhardt to leave even when every little bit of his being had screamed the opposite, and now Linhardt probably thinks Byleth hates him. After he’d done his hair.

He’d even lent him his ribbon, a childhood gift he prized so dearly, and now all Byleth can do is reach behind him to touch it. It’s soft and worn from use, fraying so badly at the ends that Byleth suspects one hard tug at a loose thread and it’ll come away entirely. He’s never been close enough to touch this ribbon, and now all he wants to do is take full advantage of it.

_What if…_

Byleth runs a hand down his hair again. It’s unnaturally soft and smooth, but if he closes his eyes he can pretend he’s touching Linhardt’s hair instead, watching Linhardt relax under him, listening to Linhardt sigh in pleasure.

The vision is intoxicating. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend the hand touching his wrist and arm and neck is Linhardt’s—if he closes his eyes, he can pretend, pretend, pretend until his body feels hot and heavy and he has to kick the covers off before he can catch on fire. What is this _feeling,_ the heat creeping through him and the sweat gathering on his brow, the need for _more more more_ of something he doesn’t even know—

It’s when his hand drifts lower and his breath catches in his throat that he realizes, _oh, this is it._

But he’s never understood it beyond the basics, not really. He knows people have sex, and that Father definitely had sex at some point to help make him, but that’s—it. Byleth stares down at where the fabric of his loose trousers has tightened, and touches himself there hesitantly—the shock of pleasure, however brief, has his thighs jerking upwards in response and he gasps embarrassingly loud. He’s never… done this before, and he doesn’t know what to do, but he needs to do _something_ else he explode from the tension.

A faint memory rises unbidden within him: Caspar and Ashe, against the kitchen counter. Kissing. Their bodies had been so close, Byleth remembers. If he kissed Linhardt—if he brought themselves so close together, if he joined their lips—

He touches himself through his clothes again, less unsurely this time, and has to bite down the sound that very nearly leaves him.

No, no, but simply kissing and being close aren’t _enough—_ Byleth wants more still, wants as much as two human bodies can allow. He wants to run his hands down Linhardt’s body, wants to pull his hair and bite his throat and tangle their legs together, wants to feel the heat radiating off of him and press his mouth to the pulse point at his neck, wants wants _wants._ Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever known a desire this hungry, this thirsty, this desperate for more of what he cannot get.

He hastily undoes his trousers and pushes them down, wrapping his hand around himself without fabric in the way—and almost kicks himself off the bed with how hard he jolts, a soft noise leaving his mouth. Why had no one told him about how _good_ this felt? It’s hot and wet and he wants to touch Linhardt like this, wants to make him feel this good too, wants to whisper praise in his ear and listen to him beg for more—wants _Linhardt_ to touch him like this, to kiss his neck and lick at his lips until, until, _until—_

Hot pleasure coils in his gut, then releases itself all at once—Byleth muffles his gasp into a pillow, gripping onto the sheets as the heat courses through him in waves, high and cresting until it begins to subside and he’s left staring at the ceiling, flushed and breathless.

Wetness slicks his palm—Byleth moves to stand, but he nearly falls forward when his legs wobble dangerously. He grabs a relatively clean rag off his dresser and wipes himself off, hoping no one thinks right now is a good time to barge in his room unannounced (he can hardly do anything to stop them—his door doesn’t even have a lock anymore, after all). When that’s done, he pulls his trousers back up and slides beneath the covers once more, his mind still buzzing with echoes of the feeling.

What had that been? Had he… touched himself, like that, to the thought of Linhardt? Had he thought about _kissing_ Linhardt? But—Byleth buries his face in his pillow. That can’t be. Right? Doesn’t that mean he… _feels something,_ for Linhardt? That’s the obvious answer, of course. But… since when? And why is he only discovering that _now?_

He sighs, deciding these are thoughts for another day—right now all the energy has left his body and left him absolutely drained, and he glances at the ring on his finger before his eyes slip shut.

Linhardt had brought his notes with him when he left, but Byleth had finished deciphering the meaning of the engraving in time. _Hi no michi ya,_ in the ancient language.

And, according to the phrase messily scribbled and encircled in the corner of Linhardt’s notes: _To the sun’s path._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- “…a slightly-too-expensive-to-be-fair cup of sweet tea.” = medieval milk tea. LOL  
> \- byleth and linhardt have (finally) achieved support level A :)  
> \- [byhardt and their hair!!!](https://twitter.com/svnctiis/status/1279222201372356609) thank you so much mari!!!!! 😭😭  
> \- [to the sun's path](https://www.slideshare.net/anthony_morgan/some-japanese-poems) ([romaji](https://terebess.hu/english/haiku/Basho%20in%20romaji%20and%20english.pdf))
> 
> next chapter: sex ed ft. literally the worst people to be teaching sex ed. oh and yet more minor character death but that's not important


	21. lone moon — “it’s okay if it’s you.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How do you have sex?”
> 
> Father spits out his coffee. Edelgard, who had been gripping on the arm of her chair, splinters the wood under her hand. Leonie accidentally kicks the backs of Hubert’s knees and sends the poor man crashing to the floor, sending up a flurry of papers.
> 
> Byleth scratches his cheek. “Does that mean it’s bad?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[i can feel the cold changing us inside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsT4V2o1gHQ) _
> 
> not much happens in this chapter as compared to the next one, but i hope you enjoy anyway! (on that note, i might post the next chapter at 12am again because reasons, so keep an eye out for it if you'd like)

Byleth knocks on the door, then heads in without bothering to wait for an answer. “Father?”

“Hey, kid.” Father looks up from—oh. He’s not alone; both Leonie and Edelgard are in the room as well, strategy plans and battle maps scattered haphazardly around them. “What is it?”

Byleth weighs the consequences of talking to him now with the others present and waiting until they leave. After realizing Edelgard probably doesn’t plan on leaving until they’ve finalized everything for the siege of Arianrhod, Byleth just heads in and sweeps a few papers out of the way. “I have a question.”

Father blinks at him. “Uh… go on?” Then, to someone behind Byleth, “Oh, Vestra, you’re back.”

“Professor.” Hubert sets two cups of coffee and two cups of tea on the desk, then nods at Byleth. “I did not prepare anything for you,” he says. It is very clearly not an apology.

“Okay,” Byleth says, not sure how else he’s supposed to respond to that.

Father stretches his arms then picks up the cup of coffee, stirring it absently. “Thanks. What were you saying, kid?”

“How do you have sex?”

Father spits out his coffee. Edelgard, who had been gripping on the arm of her chair, splinters the wood under her hand. Leonie accidentally kicks the backs of Hubert’s knees and sends the poor man crashing to the floor, sending up a flurry of papers.

Byleth scratches his cheek. “Does that mean it’s bad?”

“No!” Father manages, wiping off the coffee dripping down his chin. With a heavy sigh, he sets his cup down on the desk, rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, then gives Byleth an intense stare he usually only reserves for the most formidable of opponents. “What… brought _this_ on, Byleth?”

“Is that important?”

“If you want me to answer your question then _yes,_ it’s important.”

Byleth holds himself back from scratching his cheek again, because that would only be a giveaway. “No reason. I just happened to… realize I don’t know much about it.” That’s not even a lie—just not the complete truth.

Thankfully, Father seems to buy it, as he leans back in his chair and sighs again, now looking several times more tired than earlier. “I’ll… talk to you about it later, alright? This can wait until after we finish these—”

“We’re more than finished!” Leonie exclaims, tossing a field map behind her. “Byleth, what do you wanna know about? Let’s get you all informed so you’re ready!”

“Ready…?”

“You know, ready for—”

Edelgard flies out of her chair and smacks a hand over Leonie’s mouth. “Don’t!” she cries. “Don’t do it, Leonie! He isn’t ready! He’s nowhere near ready!”

Hubert picks himself up from the floor, grumbling under his breath, and sits himself on a previously-empty chair. “Byleth, I would suggest reserving such questions for when there is no one _else_ in the vicinity. I personally could have gone my whole life satisfied and content without ever having to hear those words from your mouth.”

“You’re never satisfied nor content,” Byleth points out. Hubert must know that’s true, because he doesn’t respond and instead rubs his assaulted knees. “What am I not ready for, Edelgard?”

Edelgard is red to the roots of her hair. “Nothing! Byleth, _really,_ could you not have found a more… ideal time to ask this of the professor? Preferably _without_ any of us around?”

“I don’t see the big deal,” Leonie says, finally managing to pry Edelgard’s hand off her mouth. Byleth nods at that. “Aww, or are you just shy ‘cause you want to hear the answer too, Your Majesty?”

Father clears his throat before Edelgard can throttle the snickering Leonie. “Alright, alright, quiet down. Edelgard, what else needs doing? We’ve gone through more or less everything already, right? Aside from the contingency plans, but those are more Vestra’s specialty than mine.”

Edelgard calmly steps away from Leonie, as if she had not been seconds away from committing a murder. “Yes, we’re just about finished here, Professor. Thank you for taking the time to consult with us as always. Leonie, your insights were helpful too. Byleth, I’ve already informed you on this, but please do be prepared for our march to Arianrhod in a few weeks’ time. It will only be the Strike Force, so it might be a more difficult battle than usual…” She fidgets in place for a moment, as if unsure what to say or where to go next, then stammers, “Then—I-I shall take my leave now! Goodbye!”

“Poor girl,” Leonie says, once the door closes behind a fleeing Edelgard. “She definitely wants to listen in.”

“It would do you well to keep your mouth shut about Her Majesty.”

“I see you’re not leaving, Hubert—do you wanna hear this, too?”

Father massages his forehead. “If you two insist on staying, then go ahead. You can regret it later on.” Then he turns to face Byleth, looking even wearier than three minutes ago. “Where do I start.”

It doesn’t sound like a question, but Father seems to be waiting for an answer, so Byleth wracks his head for exactly _what_ he wants to know. Certainly he knows _of_ sex, and he knows the _steps_ of it, like reading from a combat manual—stick this there and all that—so it isn’t as if he’s completely clueless, but everything _else_ about it, especially the feelings aspect, is a complete blank. His thoughts keep drifting to the same question— _how would it go with Linhardt, exactly_ —but he refuses to voice that aloud. Especially in front of Leonie and _Hubert._ “How does it happen?”

“You… have to give me something more specific, kid.”

“How does it start?” Byleth rewords, feeling his own frustration at himself begin to rise. If he could just tell Father what he wanted to… but, no, for some reason he doesn’t want to let anyone else know about it yet…

Father and Leonie exchange a look. Leonie looks back at Byleth, looking completely unashamed when she says, “You mean, like foreplay or something?”

Hubert jolts up from his seat, back ramrod-straight. “It seems Her Majesty has forgotten her tea,” he says, voice perfectly flat. “I shall deliver it to her right away. Please excuse me.”

“Coward!” Leonie calls after him teasingly.

“What’s… foreplay?” Byleth asks, testing the word on his tongue—it feels like any other word, and he’s not sure why he had expected it to be different somehow, but Father winces like he’s been physically injured. “Oh. You do something before it happens, then. Right?”

Leonie nods. “You learn fast, Byleth! Okay, so, to start—”

“Hold on.” Father raises his hands. “Why are _you_ the one giving my kid advice about _this._ Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Come on, Professor. What are you gonna tell him about? Birth control methods?” Leonie grins at the flabbergasted look on Father’s face. Byleth stares blankly at the two of them, not comprehending a single word. “But! Before we delve into that discussion. Byleth, _what_ brought this on? You can’t dodge the question this time.”

Byleth averts his gaze from Leonie’s curious look, if only to give himself time to think. “I—I don’t know. It just happened.”

Father slams a hand on his desk. “ _You had—_ ”

“I didn’t do anything with anyone,” Byleth hurries to add, before Leonie collapses from laughter and Father pops a vein. “I just happened to… I was thinking, and…” _I was thinking of touching him, and kissing him, and then…_ No, no, if Byleth says any of that aloud, he might just keel over from embarrassment. This conversation is starting to feel more lethal than any battle he’s had to fight in so far.

Before he can think of a proper substitute, Leonie leans back, looking thoughtful. “Okay, I think I get it,” she says.

“You do?” Byleth asks.

“You do?” Father echoes, incredulous.

“I mean, he probably just—” Leonie makes a vague gesture with her hand that _could_ be interpreted as a certain action, if Byleth tilts his head and squints. “Right?”

Father buries his face in his hands. “Alright. Great! Good to know! I never want to think about that again. Ever!”

“So dramatic. What are you, Professor, a storybook damsel from the ancient times clutching her chest every time a man passes by?” Leonie gives Byleth an assessing look, and Byleth dearly hopes she isn’t trying to imagine… _that._ “Okay. Now that that’s over with, did you mean ‘how do people just decide when to have sex’ earlier, with that first question? ‘Cause that makes more sense than asking about foreplay.”

Byleth perks up and nods eagerly, glad someone had finally put it into words, even if that someone isn’t himself. “Does it just happen?” he asks. “Do they just look at each other and… decide, like that?”

At the side, Father mutters something that sounds like the beginnings of a prayer.

Leonie laughs. “I mean, _sometimes?_ Not always, though. You definitely have to ask for permission first, as with everything. Remember, Byleth, consent is important. That’s the first rule of sex! If the other person doesn’t want it, you don’t get to decide for them.”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

“See, Professor? I’m teaching him _useful_ things. Aren’t you proud of us now?”

Father looks up from his desk. “Birth control methods are _useful._ ”

“Not for him,” Leonie says, grinning to herself at some private joke. At Byleth’s confused frown, she adds, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but do you have someone you like, Byleth? We can be a little more specific with this advice if you do.”

Byleth shrugs, not meeting her eyes. He knows she means well, but…

Even if he _had_ done all that thinking of Linhardt, does that really mean he—you know, _likes_ him? Even after all this time, Byleth still hasn’t figured out most of the emotions everyone else is so intimately familiar with, least of all something as complicated as… romance, and everything associated with it. It’s always been a foreign concept to him, which makes sense—he’s barely human, after all. What place does romance have for him and his shell of a body?

“I don’t know,” he eventually mumbles. “I don’t really understand it just yet.”

Thankfully, Leonie doesn’t press, instead humming in acknowledgement and tapping her chin. “Okay, that’s fine. No big deal. What next, Professor? Should I get down to the different bases?”

“So help me, Leonie, I will kick you out of this room if it’s the last thing I do—”

They march in secret to Arianrhod at the end of the month, as Edelgard promised.

It isn’t far from Garreg Mach—but it is up north in Faerghus territory, where Byleth has only gone to a handful of times in his mercenary days. And for good reason, because it is deathly cold and probably Byleth’s least favorite region in Fódlan, thinking about it. Ashe, among others, seems most accustomed to the climate—he helps pass around what few coats they have while only wearing his usual armor. Byleth gratefully accepts one, but eventually hands it over to Lysithea; she looks like she needs it more.

Father’s supposed to be leading the Strike Force at the head of the army with Edelgard, but he only stays there for half an hour before returning to travel at Byleth’s side, as always. He doesn’t offer his horse, because Byleth has been tiring easier lately and he should take this as endurance training, but Byleth appreciates his presence all the same. “We’ll be facing mostly mages in there,” Father says. “Your magic probably won’t do much against them, sadly.”

Byleth frowns. “I guess.” _Doesn’t mean I won’t try,_ he thinks, but decides it’s probably safer to use his rather neglected sword. Unlike dark magic, reason and faith magic can’t be taken control of, but he’d rather not risk it. “What about one of the generals? Cornelia, I think.”

Father makes a face. “What about her?”

“Hubert said she has a… suspicious magical weapon, or something.”

“Did he? I suggest you pay more attention to Cornelia herself.” Father sighs. “We met her once when we visited Faerghus, remember? Well, you probably don’t. Half the time you were just looking for a lake that wasn’t frozen to fish in. She seemed… nice, I guess, but hearing the stuff about her now… I don’t know, kid.” He shakes his head. “Just tread with caution. Something’s definitely off about her, and I think Edelgard and Hubert know something the rest of us don’t.”

Byleth doesn’t get the chance to ask him what he means—someone calls for Father’s attention, and his horse is already cantering away before Father even steers it.

That night, they set up camp on the outskirts of Gaspard territory and have dinner around a small fire. Caspar goes with Ashe to visit his younger siblings; Ferdinand makes an innocent-sounding remark about meeting the family, and Dorothea laughs so hard she almost cries. Edelgard has to tiptoe just slightly to whisper something in Lysithea’s ear, and Hubert stares at the two of them like he’s only now discovering something incredibly crucial. Manuela offers Mercedes a glass of alcohol, surprising Byleth when Mercedes takes it with her usual smile and downs the drink in one gulp.

It’s a lot more carefree than what Byleth’s gotten used to. Normally before a battle they recheck supplies, repair armor, pass around weapons. There isn’t much time for friends to… be friends, and do what friends do, and Byleth would be lying if he said he doesn’t miss it.

He’d also be lying, if he said he doesn’t wish terribly, selfishly, that Petra were here with them.

After dinner, Edelgard informs them that it should only be another half a day’s march before they arrive at Arianrhod. “Be on your guard,” she repeats, possibly for the third time within the past few days. “Until now we still are not completely certain of what magical weapons Cornelia has up her sleeve. Many of us are vulnerable to magic attacks as well… I want all available mages to spread out across the field once we get there, understand? Do whatever you can to counter what their forces send our way. And of course, there is Rodrigue to deal with as well…”

“Don’t worry so much, Edie, or you’ll get wrinkles,” Dorothea tells her. “You’ve run us through this strategy a bunch of times already, remember? We’ll be fine.”

Edelgard frowns. “I… still doubt I will feel safe until the battle is over. And then the next one, and then the next one… it is an endless cycle I can never thank all of you enough for joining me in.”

“You’ve said that enough times, too,” Lysithea points out. She lays a hand over Edelgard’s—at Edelgard’s other side, Hubert shoots her a warning glance she pointedly ignores. “We’re here for you, Edelgard. Always. We didn’t choose to follow you for no reason, did we?”

“No, I… I suppose not,” Edelgard sighs. “Thank you, Dorothea, Lysithea. I just… Sometimes… Never mind.” She shakes her head, but Byleth knows—no, everyone knows—that she must be thinking of Petra, too, and the empty space in the Strike Force where she used to be. “It’s getting late. Everyone, please rest well for the march tomorrow. We may have to fight late into the night once we arrive at Arianrhod, depending on—”

Lysithea waves her arms around. “Alright, enough strategy talk! _You_ get to bed, and no staying up to study the same stuff again for the tenth time, okay!”

Everyone disperses, meandering back to their tents scattered around the campsite, but it isn’t _too_ late—Byleth doesn’t feel sleepy yet, after all. There’s a lake nearby, so he heads in his and Father’s shared tent just long enough to grab his fishing rod and a spare basket, then picks his way through the sparse woods to get to the lake.

He sighs the moment he dips the hook into the water—it’s been too long since he’s got to relax like this, really. Ironic that he should be relaxing the most the night before a battle, but Byleth’s hardly one to pick and choose his downtime. Maybe… if he catches at least five fish, he’ll go back to camp and get some sleep.

It’s maybe two hours later that he finally reaches his quota—with the water being freezing cold, he supposes only the most resilient of fish can survive in it—and Byleth can trudge back to the campsite. He’s now regretting only keeping a thin layer on, because his hands are nearly numb with cold and his hair feels gross and damp. What he would do for a hot shower… or a new pair of gloves, because for goodness’ sake it’s been five years, he should have found a decent pair by now…

Byleth pauses. Focuses.

And hears it again—an odd voice, sounding close to a whimper.

The campsite is already emptied, and the sentries keeping watch are too far away for Byleth to have heard them. He casts a glance around, and for a moment there’s only the low crackle of the fire—

Again. He whirls around, a hand on Athame—only to see it coming from a tent with its flap just slightly folded back. Byleth mentally runs through the layout of the campsite he can vaguely recall Edelgard laying out at some point to make sure setting up went as quickly and smoothly as possible—Dorothea’s sharing with Lysithea over at the end, so beside this is Ferdinand and Ashe, and beside this is—

Oh.

Byleth drops his fishing rod and basket down to the side and heads over to the tent, nudging the flap out of the way. One of the sleeping bags—Caspar’s—is empty, and in the other one is—

“No,” Linhardt is murmuring, curled up in his own sleeping bag, “no, no—”

“Linhardt?” Byleth whispers. There’s something odd about sneaking in someone else’s tent in the middle of the night, but he can’t quite remember why—all he knows is that Linhardt looks like he’s hurt, and that Byleth has to do _something._ Maybe he’d injured himself on the walk here and hadn’t told anyone about it, for some reason? “Are you…”

But Linhardt doesn’t look up at him, only curls further in on himself, and it takes Byleth a second to realize he’s asleep. Byleth stares blankly, not sure what to do—wake Linhardt up? No, he knows how much Linhardt hates when his sleep, now rare and hard to come by these days, is interrupted. But what can he do?

His thoughts are interrupted by another soft sound, close to a sniffle—and Linhardt’s thin voice, low and muffled by fabric but still audible. “Don’t,” he’s saying—Byleth steps closer, bending down to peer at his face—“don’t go, please, don’t…”

 _A nightmare…_ Byleth swallows. He hates those. When he wakes up in the dead of the night, sweating and shaking and tangled in his blankets, the feeling of mire dripping from beneath his nails seared into his memory—“Linhardt, wake up.”

“Don’t go… I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Linhardt—” Byleth lays a hand on his wrist. “Wake up, please.”

The trembling stops, and Linhardt’s breathing settles back into something more even—and then his eyes crack open, the glimmer of blue just barely visible in the light. “Who… Byleth?”

“It’s me.” Byleth nods. “I’m here. Are you—”

He doesn’t get to say much else before Linhardt is sitting up and squeezing his hands in his own, so tight it almost hurts. “It’s you,” Linhardt says, as if for confirmation. “You’re here. I…” He lets out a harsh exhale, pressing his forehead against Byleth’s shoulder. “You’re here,” he repeats, softly, shakily.

Byleth lets them stay that way for another few seconds before he quietly asks, “Was that a nightmare?”

Linhardt draws away from him slightly, just enough for them to face each other. Byleth can hardly see in the darkness, but he thinks he can catch familiar details in Linhardt’s face anyway: the furrow of his brow, the arch of his eyes, the curve of his lips. “Yes.”

“Tell me about it?”

“It’s… childish.”

“Tell me about it anyway?”

Linhardt sighs. “Before every battle, I… dream of killing. The act of doing it, of taking a life. Sometimes I see—blood on my hands. But it’s usually faceless soldiers. Tonight, it was…” He pauses, and Byleth absently begins to rub his hands—along the back of his palm, the ridges of his knuckles. Linhardt shakes his head. “It was the rest of us. Ferdinand, Hubert, Dorothea… Caspar… Edelgard… you.”

“Oh.”

“That’s it?” Linhardt laughs dryly. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

Linhardt shrugs. “Nothing. Just listen. And keep doing that, please.” He touches the inside of Byleth’s wrist, just light enough to be felt, and Byleth hurries to continue his… he doesn’t even know what to call what he’s doing. His ministrations? “It… didn’t end there, though. Unfortunately. It was… I was… watching… You remember what happened when you fell, yes?”

Byleth nods. “Rhea blasted me off the cliff.”

“Very concise. Thank you,” Linhardt mutters. “But I watched you fall, that time. I ran after you, but you were already falling, and I saw you stretch out your arm before you disappeared into that chasm and—” He takes a shuddering breath, letting it out in a similarly shuddering exhale. “Again and again. Over and over. I watched you fall, watched you leave. Watched you die.”

“But I’m here,” Byleth hurries to say. Just touching Linhardt’s hands doesn’t feel like enough now, and he moves to grip his wrist, his arm, his elbow. “I’m here. I’m alive.”

“I know!” Linhardt snaps. “I _know_ you’re alive, I _know_ you’re here—but I didn’t when it actually happened! I watched you die and die and _die,_ and all I could think of was how it was my fault, how I wasn’t fast enough, how I was too damn _weak,_ because if I had just been faster, if I had just fought harder, maybe you wouldn’t have disappeared for five years! Maybe then you would have still been _alive!_ ”

Silence follows his outburst like a jealous shadow—it fills the tent, settling over the two of them in the form of another layer of coldness. Then Linhardt sighs and looks up to meet Byleth’s eyes. “I… I’m sorry. I’m not… I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just…”

“It’s okay.” Byleth pauses. “Are you mad at me? For leaving?”

Linhardt huffs. “If I were, this would be far easier to deal with. But no, I’m not. It isn’t as if it was your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours, either.”

“I—”

“It wasn’t yours,” Byleth insists. His hand has found itself atop Linhardt’s shoulder, and it takes everything in him not to move his hand further up and touch his cheek, brush knotted locks of hair out of his face. “If anyone has to be blamed, it’s Rhea. Only her. Okay? Not you, Linhardt. Never you.”

Linhardt stares down at their… Byleth hadn’t realized their legs had tangled together while they had been talking. Seeing Linhardt’s knees bumping against Byleth’s thighs just makes him want _more,_ though, and he shifts just slightly closer once more. “You never blamed me?” Linhardt whispers.

“No.” Byleth frowns. “Why would I? I told you. It wasn’t your fault.” When Linhardt doesn’t respond, only leans in to rest his chin atop Byleth’s shoulder, Byleth reaches up to run a hand down his hair and gently undo the knots. “Have you been blaming yourself all these years?”

“Who else was there?” Linhardt mumbles against his shoulder. His voice sends a shiver down Byleth’s spine, one he desperately and just barely manages to suppress.

“You don’t have to now. I’m here, right? And I’m not leaving. I promised.” Byleth takes Linhardt’s hand in his free one, the one not in his hair, and laces their fingers together. Like this their scars rub against each other, Byleth’s from handling weapons and Linhardt’s from handling magic.

Byleth feels Linhardt shudder against him. “Promises can be broken.” _You’ve demonstrated as much,_ he doesn’t say.

“I know.” Byleth squeezes his hand, and feels his chest lighten when Linhardt does the same. “But that’s what makes them worth protecting. Right?”

Linhardt sighs again. He never seems to grow tired of the action. “I suppose. You make it sound very heroic and selfless, when in reality it’s more painful than anything.” He pauses. “But that’s you, after all. Selfless to a fault.”

“Selfless?” Byleth echoes—he’s been called plenty of things, but _selfless_ hasn’t been one of them so far.

“Aren’t you? You rush headlong into things without care for your own safety so long as the rest of us are alright. Now you’ve taken to healing others at the expense of your well-being.” Linhardt pulls back, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. “Or maybe you’re just a little idiotic. Either works.”

Byleth feels a smile tug at the corners of his lips. “Either way, I don’t mind.”

The amusement on Linhardt’s face is endearing, and Byleth leans in closer, if only to see it better in the darkness—only to realize his mistake when the amusement shifts into confusion as Linhardt backs away, pulling his hand free from Byleth’s grip as well. “I thought you…”

“What?” Byleth asks, torn between backing off in turn or staying in place. If Linhardt doesn’t want him to be near, then he won’t do so, but… but…

“I remember you telling me not to come too close to you, before,” Linhardt blurts out. Without Sothis’ usual help, the memory comes back to Byleth slowly—a sunny afternoon, cooking duty together, Linhardt peering over his shoulder and Byleth’s knee-jerk reaction to his proximity. “I must admit I forgot about it a few months afterwards anyway, but you’ve started… you’ve begun…”

He trails off, but Byleth thinks he knows what he means anyway: _You’re the one coming too close now._

“I do prefer a safe distance,” Byleth tells him, still not moving. “But it’s okay if it’s you.”

Linhardt looks surprised, which Byleth had expected—he doesn’t remember when he had grown so comfortable around Linhardt, or around other people in general. It had taken a while, but he had stopped jumping at every sound or suspecting every person behind him was sneaking up on him—which is funny, because he thinks those are reflexes that should be honed during wartime, not dulled. But here he is, already so close to Linhardt yet still starving for more of him, as much as he can possibly get and then more.

He realizes, belatedly, that his hand is resting just lightly atop Linhardt’s chest, his fingers not an inch away from the buttons of his shirt. Byleth stares at the distance between his thumb and the nearest button—Linhardt slowly follows his gaze.

“What…” Linhardt swallows. “What are you doing?”

“I—” _want to touch you, want to be near you, want you want you want you—_ but Byleth swallows the words down, and only then does he hear the trepidation in Linhardt’s voice. There’s hesitation, and confusion, and though Byleth doesn’t know what that warm, sunshine feeling sounds like, he doubts he’d be able to hear it even if he did.

_Remember, Byleth, consent is important. If the other person doesn’t want it, you don’t get to decide for them._

“Nothing,” Byleth says, standing up. Linhardt doesn’t seem to have expected that, only blinking blankly up at him. “I should get going. Goodnight, L—”

“No, wait!”

Byleth halts mid-step and turns back around. “Don’t go,” Linhardt murmurs, looking down at the floor and clutching the fabric of the sleeping bag in his fists. “Don’t leave yet. I… I don’t…”

 _Oh._ That’s right. It hasn’t been very long since Linhardt had woken up, and though Byleth doubts he’ll have the same nightmare again, he’s also gone through nights where his sleep had been constantly interrupted by the same dreams, over and over again until he had given up on sleeping entirely. And from a distance, Linhardt looks so _cold_ curled up alone in the bag, especially when Byleth has grown used to seeing him wrapped up in layers of blankets.

Linhardt sighs in relief when Byleth moves back beside him. “I’m sorry. I just… I can’t…”

“It’s okay.” Byleth tilts his head, placing a hand over Linhardt’s shaking ones. They’re freezing cold, and not for the first time, Byleth curses Faerghus’ terrible climate. Linhardt, being from the slightly warmer Empire, probably isn’t used to this at all… but there’s hardly anything to keep him warm here.

Unless…

“It’s horribly cold up north,” Linhardt grumbles, tucking his legs back beneath the sleeping bag. “I wish I could have brought some thicker sleepwear, but my choices were—”

“Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?”

The silence is heavy on Byleth’s shoulders. Linhardt breaks off in the middle of whatever he had been saying, and it takes him a moment before he can speak. “Come again?” he asks, his voice cracking audibly.

“You’re cold,” Byleth points out. “We can share body warmth.”

“Oh! Oh.” Linhardt leans back in what looks like relief. “Of course. Yes. That is definitely what I was thinking of. Absolutely.”

“Oh, really? Okay. That’s convenient.” Byleth nudges his shoes off, places Athame atop some traveling packs, and watches in bemusement as Linhardt shuffles to make space in the sleeping bag—space that Byleth is fairly sure not a single person could fit comfortably in, but space all the same, he supposes.

Linhardt sighs once Byleth squeezes in, his breath ruffling the top of Byleth’s hair. “We are both going to wake up cramped tomorrow.”

“But warm,” Byleth reminds him. “And that’s what’s important, right?”

“You make a compelling argument, I must say.” Linhardt yawns, pushes Byleth around until Linhardt’s satisfied with his position, then lays his head against Byleth’s chest. “Don’t move, alright?” he mumbles, words already beginning to sound more similar to a yawn.

“I can’t.”

“Whatever.” And then, softer, “Please don’t leave, either.”

Byleth reaches around Linhardt to stroke his hair. He’s reminded of the last time they had slept together in the same bed… if he can be _reminded_ of that at all, considering he had barely paid attention to the details of that situation the same way he’s paying attention to everything now, to the rise and fall of Linhardt’s chest and the rhythm of his heart beating steadily in time with Byleth’s breathing.

“I won’t,” he promises.

For the first time since arriving in Faerghus, Byleth feels warm again.

_Warm skin, and—fingertips grazing his arm, turning into a vicegrip when Byleth moves—_

_“Ah, yes,” someone’s saying, maybe Byleth, maybe the owner of those deep blue eyes staring up at him, half-lidded and heavy with emotion Byleth can’t identify. He spins his wheel of known feelings and comes up with nothing to describe the look in those eyes, one that makes him think of how smoke from a fire dances in the air, or how plush lips move around words—_

_Byleth cannot register anything outside of fragments: long strands of dark green hair slipping through his fingers, evasive as water—little sighs and murmurs and gasps, how breaths hitch in one’s throat and catch at the ends of softly-spoken names—“more, more,” and there’s something hot pooling in his gut, the urge to reach for it too strong to resist—_

“What is _this!_ ” a vaguely familiar voice screeches. “You absolute scoundrel! What have you been up to while I’ve been gone? You think you can do whatever you like now because I am not around!? And what do you mean, _vaguely familiar!_ My voice is as familiar as it can get—”

Unwelcome light streams through Byleth’s eyelids, followed by heavy footsteps. “Lin _haaardt—_ and Byleth too, I guess,” Caspar calls, shoving the tent flap out of the way. Byleth suppresses a complaint and throws an arm over his eyes instead. “Wake up! Breakfast, then we march again!”

Linhardt groans and attempts to roll over, probably to lie on his stomach and bury his face in the pillow, but the two of them are squeezed too tight to move much—he settles for pressing his face closer to Byleth’s chest instead, hot breath fanning over Byleth’s neck. “Five minutes,” he grumbles. “Or ten… twenty… just go away…”

“Aw, you don’t mean that.” Caspar crouches down and pats his cheek in a manner that tells Byleth he’s used to this. “Hey, Byleth, mind waking him up too somehow? I mean, you’re already there.”

“Ah…” Byleth shifts a little, trying to free his arm from where it’s trapped beneath Linhardt—and pauses.

Because Linhardt’s eyes snap open, and he’s staring at Byleth in disbelief—before his gaze moves further down, beneath the cover of the sleeping bag.

Then he all but _leaps_ out of the sleeping bag, crawling like a madman towards his clothes. “I’m awake,” Linhardt declares, sounding more awake than Byleth (and Caspar, probably) has ever seen him. “Very awake. How about that breakfast!” And he bolts out of the tent without waiting for an answer.

“Huh,” Caspar says, at length. “Last time that happened… nope, never happened before.” Then, to Byleth, he adds, “Don’t be too slow, or you’ll get leftovers!” before heading out as well, leaving Byleth alone in a tent that isn’t even his.

After a considering pause, he peers beneath the sleeping bag cover. And stares, blankly, at what Linhardt must have run away from.

The battle is a mess from the start. The Strike Force pales in comparison to the sheer number of enemy soldiers stationed around Arianrhod, not to mention the giant magical titans that rumble and whir around the fortress city. Half the time Byleth has to hide behind buildings or duck inside houses to escape their notice, something that never works out well considering the titans simply swing their arms around and wreck whatever he had been trying to use as shelter.

Conquering Arianrhod with their measly numbers is impossible to do in groups—everyone splits up, which leaves Byleth to jump from area to area within the city trying to check up on everyone he can find. Edelgard and Ferdinand are doing the same, from what he can tell, so after a while he gives up on trying to locate everyone and form a mental map in his head—the battle is hard enough as it is by himself.

He makes the mistake of turning a corner around one of the emptier streets, and runs straight into a lone general.

There’s no time to hide or run—they’ve already locked eyes. Byleth stares into the other man’s light brown eyes, narrowed in anger and disgust. “So it’s you,” he says, voice sharp as the sword he brandishes. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t have died so easily.”

 _Who are you, again?_ Byleth desperately wants to ask. Instead he tenses for a fight, his hands ready on the Creator Sword—he recognizes the face of someone who will waste no time for talk.

Before either of them move, though, something zips up above, distracting the other man for a second—Byleth takes the chance to duck into the alleyway he had just come from, ignoring the shout from behind. He glances up when the path ahead looks empty, and feels himself pale at a familiar face— _Ingrid,_ he remembers. Byleth and the rest of the Black Eagles had helped her, once.

Now she locks eyes with him atop her pegasus, and her expression hardens as she swoops down, her spear aimed straight for him. _Too fast, too fast, I can’t—_

The smell of ozone, static in the air—then a bolt of thunder, blasting Ingrid right off her mount. She must scream, but Byleth can only hear the ringing in his ears, and when he hurtles ahead he can see Dorothea at the other end of the street, her palms still smoking with thunder magic. “Thank you,” Byleth tries to say—he certainly forms the words, but who knows if either of them hear it.

Dorothea says nothing, her entire form trembling. “That was Ingrid,” she breathes, “wasn’t it?” And then, without waiting for a reply, she rushes towards the body on the pavement.

Byleth watches. Ingrid had been closer to the ground than a few seconds earlier, but she had still fallen from a great height—he has little hope she had survived that. But Dorothea runs to her all the same, crumpling to her knees beside Ingrid’s head. “Ingrid?” she whispers, shakily. “Are you—Can you hear me?”

A cough, a splatter of blood. “You…”

Dorothea lets out a badly-stifled sob, and her hands move to clasp around Ingrid’s. One of her arms is twisted at an unnatural angle—Byleth supposes she must have landed on that when she fell. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never would have—I didn’t know—” A Heal spell glows faintly around Ingrid’s hands, the light spreading to the rest of her body.

“Don’t,” Ingrid mumbles, pulling her hands away from Dorothea’s. There’s little force in the action, but Dorothea lets go anyway, her tears dripping down Ingrid’s cheek. “I promised I would… fight until the end…”

“This isn’t how it should be!” Dorothea cries, slamming a fist into the ground. Electricity sparks around her hand, threatening to be let loose. “Why does it have to be this way? Why do I have to… Why do you…”

Byleth takes a tentative step forward, and then another and another, until he’s kneeling beside the two of them as well. Ingrid isn’t breathing, but Byleth doesn’t need to see that to know she’s gone. “Come on,” he murmurs. “We have to go.”

“But—” Dorothea exhales harshly, rubbing furiously at her eyes with the balls of her palms, the only part of her hands that haven’t been scorched black. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I—I shouldn’t be doing this, I—”

A flash of steel. Byleth thrusts the Creator Sword out without thinking—he cuts off a lock of Dorothea’s hair, but that is, at least, far more preferable than her entire head being lopped off.

“Felix!” Dorothea exclaims, jumping back to her feet and scrambling away from Ingrid’s body. Felix—ah, _now_ Byleth remembers—looks down at her corpse, and the anger in his face changes to bloody fury. Byleth draws back as well, readying the Creator Sword for another strike—from what few sparring sessions he had had with Felix back in their academy days, he had been much faster and speedier than everyone else, making his attacks hard to parry if one isn’t expecting them.

And judging by the murderous gleam in his eyes, Felix is set on avenging Ingrid.

“Get out of here,” Byleth hisses.

“What—?”

“Get out of here, _now,_ ” he repeats, right before a beam of lightning— _the Thoron spell_ —streaks towards him, and Byleth only barely manages to shove Dorothea out of the way. The magic slices right through the pavement, as if—Byleth swallows—as if it’s been modified specifically to _cut,_ just like Linhardt’s Wind spells.

The Creator Sword can deflect most anything, but Byleth doesn’t want to try it out on a modified Thoron spell, of all things. He helps Dorothea up before Felix can cast another one and they race through the streets together, Ingrid’s blood still dripping from Dorothea’s hands. “ _Cowards!_ ” Byleth hears from behind, followed by another _crack-boom_ of thunder magic. “ _That’s all you know how to do, isn’t it!? Kill then run away!_ ”

Another sob leaves Dorothea’s mouth—Byleth pulls her down a row of side-streets he had taken earlier to confuse a group of enemy soldiers. Hopefully the same will work on Felix.

They reconvene with Hubert, courtesy of his tracking magic finding them hidden away in a half-collapsed building while waiting for Felix to leave—he updates them on the state of the battle, although with the whirring of the magical titans audible in the distance his information is hardly new to either of them. “Rodrigue has fallen,” Hubert tells them, as if pointing out a hint of bad weather. “Only Cornelia left. Felix can be dealt with quickly. But our forces—”

“Forces,” Dorothea mutters. “We’re 15 people at most, Hubie.”

“Our forces are badly wounded,” he continues blandly. “Our healers are doing all we can to fix up injuries, but we are scattered throughout the city. I fear the enemy will find us before we take down their leader.”

Byleth runs a hand through his hair, ignoring how Hubert gives him an expectant look. He doesn’t want to think about strategy or tactics or what they have to do next, because all he can see is Ingrid’s body, Dorothea beside her, hands wet with blood she spilled—

There’s still time. His limit for going back in time is five hours—he could still use a Divine Pulse now, could still take a different path and find Dorothea and drag her away from Ingrid, could still change something—

“Byleth.” Hubert’s voice is hard, firm. “Focus.”

“I—” Byleth inhales, exhales, stares into Hubert’s single visible eye. For a moment he wishes Edelgard and Hubert were truly cruel, truly evil, truly set on stamping down anyone who stands in their way. But he knows they aren’t, he knows Edelgard is frightened of rats and the ocean and all she wants is to someday sit down and gorge on sweets, he knows Hubert makes tea for anyone on the Strike Force on the darkest and coldest of nights when they jolt awake from nightmares. And Byleth wants, terribly, to hate them for being so _human._

The Creator Sword pulses in his hands, as close to a heart as he can get. More than anything, Byleth wishes Sothis were here, if only to remind him of simpler times.

“If we’re to take down Cornelia, we have to focus on her golems first,” Byleth manages. Somehow he forces his voice to keep from shaking. “They’ll protect her otherwise. How many are left?”

“Two.”

“Then we split up and outnumber them. They must have weak spots, too, or wherever their magic is concentrated.” Byleth pauses, trying to remember how the golems had looked like based off the quick glimpses he’d caught of them throughout the battle. “If anyone on a flying mount can somehow blind them…”

Quiet descends upon them. Byleth wants to kick himself. Everyone else has only had minimal training on flying—Petra, who excels in just about everything, was their main flier.

“Arrows,” Hubert finally says. “Bernadetta, Leonie, and Ashe can still fight. But we will need to hold the golems still long enough for them to aim accurately…”

“I’ve been practicing.” Dorothea holds out her arm, and a whip of lightning lashes out to wrap around a chunk of debris. She pulls, and the lightning holds fast. “It won’t break, and it’ll hurt.” She still looks haunted, and she hasn’t wiped the blood off her hands yet, but her expression is one of determination.

“Okay.” Byleth closes his eyes, counts backwards from one to ten, flexes his hands and times his breathing to the pulse of the Creator Sword. “Okay.”

He believes in Edelgard. He believes in her cause. But he has never hated a war so much.

Cornelia dies by Ferdinand’s lance—the spearhead pierces right through her, coming from the back and emerging from the front, right where her heart is. The enemy soldiers stand down quickly afterwards, and later someone spots Felix’s body in the middle of the city square, his cause of death via the Swarm dark magic spell. (So, Lysithea.)

At least, that’s what Byleth is told, because he doesn’t stick around to watch after he spots Hubert slinking away in the darkness, gaze akin to that of a predator locating its prey.

Byleth trusts Hubert. He knows the other man would do nothing to hurt Edelgard—but he also knows there is nothing the other man would do to help Edelgard as well, which is what concerns Byleth more. He follows Hubert through the alleyways, always several steps behind, only close enough to catch the hem of his coat or hear the lightest of footfalls before he turns a corner—but Byleth is used to following, to hiding under cover of nothing but sound and shadow, and if Hubert has noticed him (which he probably has), he hasn’t bothered to stop him. So it’s nearly the same as getting Hubert’s permission to tail after him, really.

“Give it up,” Hubert finally hisses once they reach a dead end. Byleth obediently halts in place, but Hubert is looking straight ahead of him, staring at… whoever is on the other side of this corner. “You’ve nowhere to run now, scum.”

Someone laughs, low and dry. “I thought you allied yourself with us. Why seek to kill me now?”

“Kill you? Why, you have it wrong. I only need answers on what your leaders plan to do, because they certainly refuse to tell me.” Quick as a flash Hubert stretches out an arm, curling his fingers, and the man on the other side coughs and chokes. “Do not even think about taking that poison in your mouth. I know every little trick up your transparent sleeves.”

Byleth inches closer, just enough to see the other man—he’s clad in typical dark mage clothing, complete with the long-beaked mask that hides his entire face, and he’s dangling from the air and being choked from the inside out. Hubert holds the spell a little longer, than huffs and lets his arm drop back to his side, along with the man who collapses to his knees on the ground. His mask has been knocked off, revealing something greenish-white dribbling harmlessly down his chin— _the poison?_

“It’s a simple thing,” Hubert tells him quietly. “Normal poison would be impossible to draw out without killing the other person. But this is concocted specially by those who slither in the dark, and they like adding dark magic in everything they make.”

 _Like seasoning?_ Byleth wants to ask, but that sounds a little inappropriate for the situation, so he just nods instead. Hubert gives him a look that makes Byleth wonder if he had accidentally said the words aloud anyway.

The mage growls and scrubs the poison off his chin, then yanks his mask back over his face. “I don’t even know anything, Empire rat! What makes you think the higher-ups tell us vital information?”

Byleth bristles. “Careful with your tongue, or you might end up without it.”

The mage only scoffs at first, before his gaze lands on the Creator Sword at Byleth’s side—and then he breaks into another laugh, this one a tad more hysterical than the one before. “Oh, don’t mind me,” he snickers, at Hubert’s and Byleth’s matching baffled looks, “it’s just—I can’t help myself, every time I see one of those fucking Hero’s Relics being used… least of all _that_ one.”

“This?” Byleth lifts the Creator Sword up, even when Hubert shoots him a warning glance. There’s something in the mage’s voice that tells Byleth he knows more than he’s letting on. “What about the Relics?”

A pause—the mage stares at him, or so Byleth assumes. His mask covers everything, after all. And then the mage bursts into laughter for the third time, only now he sounds like he’s close to losing his head. “You don’t know!” he shrieks. “You’ve been swinging that stupid thing around for years and you don’t even _know!_ ”

“Know _what?_ ” Byleth snarls.

“Byleth—”

“No,” Byleth interrupts, shaking his head when Hubert tries to step between them, “I want to hear this. I think I deserve to.”

“Deserve to…” The mage giggles, the sound eerie coming from behind that mask. “You poor thing. All this time, and they never told you. Tell me, what do you know of the Hero’s Relics?”

“They’re…” Byleth smothers the stutter that had threatened to rise. Now isn’t the time. “They were weapons gifted to humanity by the goddess. And… they were used by Nemesis and the Ten Elites during the War of Heroes.”

“Is that so?” Without the mask, Byleth would probably be able to see the mage smiling. He’s glad it’s in the way. “And your sword—it never feels like something more than just a weapon to you? It doesn’t speak for itself, it doesn’t share its thoughts with you, it has never felt _alive?_ ”

“I—” Byleth scowls. “Can you get to the point?”

The mage shakes his head. “Long ago, when the goddess still freely roamed Fódlan, she had children of her own. Nabateans, or so they are called. Nemesis and the Ten Elites slaughtered them. They fashioned these weapons out of their bones and used their hearts as Crest Stones. Going by that logic, the Sword of the Creator was made from the body of the goddess herself.”

Byleth feels the world go numb. “You… expect me to believe this?”

The mage cocks his head to the side, and his mask falls just askew enough for Byleth to see the beginnings of a grotesque grin on his face. “You’ve never looked closely at that precious sword of yours? You’ve never thought it pulses like a heartbeat? You’ve never thoughts its segments might just look a little bit… like a human spine?”

“That’s enough out of you.” Hubert flicks his wrist again, and the mage gurgles as he begins to convulse, something in his throat visibly bubbling against his skin—Byleth turns away at the last second, and only vaguely registers the blood that splashes onto him. “Byleth,” Hubert says, “that was—”

“Is it true?” Byleth whispers. He stares down at the Creator Sword, and he can’t decide whether to keep holding on to it or to leave it on the pavement and run away and never look back. “Everything he said?”

The brief silence is all the answer Byleth needs. “I apologize,” Hubert finally says, voice even quieter than usual. “Her Majesty and I meant to tell you, at some point, but we never found an opportune time. Eventually we assumed someone else would have told you about it, but… I… admit this was a shortcoming on my part. I should have informed you earlier.”

Byleth shakes his head, but the motion is so jerky he wonders if he had done it at all. “It’s—not your fault, I just…”

All those times he had thought the Creator Sword had felt a little too sentient to not be alive, somehow—all those times he had gripped the hilt of the weapon and felt it pulse through him like a heartbeat he had never been able to afford—all those times, and he had never known? Had never even thought it might be…?

He loosens his grip on the sword, and rubs his thumb over the Crest Stone in the center of the hilt. It had appeared after Sothis relinquished her power to him. So this is… her heart.

Is it Byleth’s, too?

“Let us return,” Hubert murmurs, interrupting his thoughts. “We are all tired. This battle was exhausting, and it will only become more difficult from here on. You… need rest, Byleth.”

“I’m fine. I think.”

“You have been running yourself more and more ragged lately. Do not think the rest of us have not noticed.” Hubert begins walking, and Byleth reluctantly follows a step behind him. “It was only luck you were not terribly injured today, like you have been for the past few battles—”

“Not by choice, I promise.”

“—but you need rest all the same. As do all of us.” Hubert sighs, heavy and deep, and for a moment Byleth thinks he sees those ever-straight shoulders slump forward in exhaustion. “But I must continue looking for another informant. That last one was utterly useless. If only we had kept Cornelia alive for a second longer…”

Byleth peers up at him. “What are you searching for?”

“Answers.”

“That… doesn’t explain anything.”

Hubert sighs again, this one sounding more like his usual ‘I am very tired of explaining things to people, please just let me be cryptic’ one. “You remember Solon and Kronya? Or Monica, as you might know her. It is true we have allied ourselves with them out of convenience, but their faction is hardly to be trusted. In truth, I have begun to suspect they are on the verge of turning against us, so I have been trying to seek out more information on their plan of action to avoid us getting caught up in their mess…”

Byleth nods along to his words, not really comprehending all of them but doing his best to keep up anyway. Hubert’s voice is low and monotonous, and when Byleth’s as tired as he is now, it sounds almost soothing enough to fall asleep to.

He runs that thought through his head again. This war has truly changed him, if he’s putting _Hubert_ and _soothing_ in the same sentence.

Back in his room, Byleth runs his fingers down the Creator Sword, from hilt to blade to shining tip. It would never hurt him, he knows that, believes in it as surely as he believes in its capability to fight on its own without his constant guidance.

There are cracks along its build, some of the gold chipped away to reveal bone-white underneath. Byleth closes his eyes, and he can hear it breathing in that odd, pulsating way of its.

The signs have been here this whole time. Had he simply chosen not to see them?

“Sothis,” he murmurs aloud, “are you there?”

No answer. Not that he had been expecting one. Byleth clears his throat and speaks anyway. “I never knew this was… made out of your body. Your spine or… whatever. I never knew the Crest Stone was your heart either. But I guess it makes sense, in retrospect. I never knew anything like this about you… so I don’t know if I’m supposed to apologize. But you like being apologized to, so I’ll just say I’m sorry, okay?”

Silence greets him in the form of a breeze blowing in through his opened window. Byleth sighs and buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles again, only this time the words come out far shakier than he had intended. “I’m sorry. I wish you were here, I wish I hadn’t gotten ourselves into that mess and forced you to sacrifice yourself, I—I want to see you again, so please…”

He keeps his eyes squeezed shut for another minute, then lets his hands drop limply down to his lap. There is still nothing, still no one in front of him but the Creator Sword, and Byleth wonders why he had dared to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: :)


	22. great tree moon (1) — “oh.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you ever been in love?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[you’re the light i follow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHwr1UbwzIg) _
> 
> another one of my favorite chapters!!! also note that this chapter and the next two are the ones that went through a more extensive editing process than the rest of the fic combined, so there... is that. hehe
> 
> as always, please enjoy! :)

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Byleth blinks blearily, shaking himself out of his stupor—Father grunts when he folds his legs to sit beside Byleth, not bothering to brush away some dirt on the ground. “I… I fell asleep.”

“In a cemetery? You really are something else.”

“I was tired.” Byleth pauses. “I’m still tired.”

Father sighs, propping his head up on the edge of his palm. “What’re you doing here anyway? It’s not the best place to take a nap.”

“I was waiting for Linhardt…” Byleth trails off. He had asked Linhardt to tea—

(or, more accurately, Byleth had happened to catch a familiar scent while studying magic with Linhardt in the library and he had leaned in perhaps a touch too close than usual to sniff it out again, and Linhardt had hastily backed away and asked what he was doing, and Byleth had asked, “Did you come from the greenhouse? You smell like angelica,” and Linhardt had just stared at him and eventually Byleth caught the hint to invite him to tea)

—but Linhardt needed to run an errand before he could relax, so Byleth had dawdled beneath the shade of their usual tree for maybe five minutes before getting bored and wandering off. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep by Mother’s grave… he’d only been tracing the lines on her gravestone, the words long faded by wind and rain, and absently playing with Father’s engagement ring.

Father shakes his head. “I saw him sleeping beneath a tree just over there. Guess you two missed each other, then? Hurry along.”

“Right. Okay.” Byleth stands up, but pauses when Father doesn’t follow. Half-reflexively, he feels for the ring tucked neatly under his shirt, running his finger over its now-familiar ridges. “Father…”

“Mm?”

“How did you know when it would be the right time? To… To give Mother this ring?”

Father doesn’t look surprised at the question, only tilting his head just slightly back to face the sky. “I just knew, kid,” he says, like it really was that simple, like he had simply looked at Mother’s face one day and something had whispered, _now._ “It doesn’t have to be complicated. When you look at the ring, do you think of someone?”

“I…” Byleth tightens his grip on the ring. Under his thumb he can feel the links of the fine golden chain Linhardt had strung it on. “I don’t know. Because I think… I mean, I keep thinking… I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Emotions,” he mutters. “Love. It sounds like I should know what it is already. But… I don’t.”

Father hums thoughtfully. “I think you don’t have to know love to _feel_ love. It just sort of happens, and you don’t really get a say in the matter, and then before you know it—” He makes a vague gesture with his hands. “There you go. You’re in love.”

“I wish it sounds as easy as you make it.”

“It can be,” Father laughs, “if you want it to be.”

Byleth meets back up with Linhardt beneath their tree—he’s not sure when it had become _theirs,_ only that it was theirs during their academy days and it is certainly still theirs now, five years later. Linhardt’s still dozing off, so Byleth hurries to prepare the tea and comes back once it’s done. He says nothing when he sits down beside Linhardt, nestled comfortably among the tree’s roots, but Linhardt stirs awake anyway.

“Oh, there you are.” Linhardt yawns, accepting the cup Byleth hands him. “I was beginning to think you had forgotten… very rude of you, making me wait like that.”

“Sorry. I sort of…” Byleth pauses, trying to reword his nap to make it sound less irresponsible of him, then gives up when he realizes Linhardt is probably the last person to get mad at someone for falling asleep. “Took a nap.”

As expected, Linhardt just shrugs. “Good. So we both got a few minutes’ rest. Though I could do with more…” He yawns, setting the cup down on the grass before him and stretching his arms above his head. “Hmm… Did you know I made plenty of advancements in my research on you after thoroughly analyzing your answers?” he cheerily asks.

Byleth can already feel himself relaxing. Linhardt and research, especially together, have always been comforting. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that the goddess supposedly had the ability to turn back time.”

Byleth is suddenly very glad he had set his cup down next to Linhardt’s, for if he had been holding it he surely would have snapped the handle in half. Linhardt looks unperturbed, and perhaps a bit smug, when he sees Byleth’s stricken expression. “It was considered a legend, so it was buried away in one of the more ancient history books. But it matches up to how you somehow manage to be everywhere at once, right before something terrible would have happened to one of us. Is that how the Strike Force has survived this long?”

“T-That’s not true,” Byleth stammers, not quite sure what fact he’s trying to dispute. He struggles to choose one among everything Linhardt had said, then grudgingly settles on, “The Strike Force was doing well long before I came back.”

Linhardt sighs. “Byleth. That was very obviously a bait question. Are you not going to tell me you don’t, in fact, have the ability to turn back time?”

“Of course—”

“—you do. Thanks for clearing that up.” At Byleth’s frown, Linhardt’s lips quirk up in the beginnings of a smile. “How else to better explain prophetic dreams, after all? Your reflexes and instincts are good, but they can’t possibly foretell death. Can they?”

Byleth sighs, sips his tea for far too long just to give himself time to think, then finally says, “Fine. Yes. That is… a thing… I can do. Turn back time.” It feels unreal telling it to someone else after all this time, especially when Sothis had used to be his only confidante about these matters, and…

He shakes the thought from his head. He’d left the Creator Sword in his room—he is not about to be looking at that thing for today.

Linhardt smiles, a full one this time, and somehow seeing that makes admitting the truth feel much less like a burden. “So I’m the first to know about it!”

“I, um… Yes?”

“Finally,” Linhardt murmurs, the most self-satisfied Byleth’s heard him. “It’s a thrill finding out you’re the first person to know about something. Other than you, of course, but you don’t count. Although, really, this mystery of yours was a dead giveaway by the fact that you made it a mystery at all… maybe if you had given me something a little more probable than _prophetic dreams,_ I wouldn’t have tried digging further.”

Byleth feels himself smile. Sometimes he’s still surprised at his own capabilities, that he _can_ smile and he _can_ laugh and he _can_ act like the normal human being he isn’t. “Okay. Next time I need to hide something from you, I’ll make sure to think it through.”

“Thank you.” Linhardt leans in a little closer, but far from as close as he used to get when they were younger. Byleth suppresses a frown—if Linhardt’s going to come near him, then why can’t he do it all the way and save Byleth the indecision of doing it himself? “I still don’t quite understand how you slept through those five years,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Byleth. “And I still wonder how you have the Crest of Flames. An implantation, possibly, but there seem to have been no negative side-effects yet…”

“Linhardt?”

He blinks, then quickly draws back as if realizing his mistake. Which irks Byleth to no end, that Linhardt should view coming closer to him as a _mistake_ when instead Byleth just wants him to stay as close to him as possible. “Sorry. Did I…?”

“No, you didn’t do anything. I just…” _want you to come closer. Want you to stay near._ “Have a question.”

“Oh. Alright. I suppose it _is_ your turn to ask questions, after all this time.”

Byleth worries on his lower lip, wondering how he should phrase this question—then decides the end result will be the same no matter how he puts it, and Linhardt has always appreciated it when people were straight-to-the-point. “Have you ever been in love?”

Linhardt—doesn’t react right away, only stares blankly at him as if Byleth had spoken a foreign language. Then, slowly, he turns away to sip at his tea in silence. Byleth lets him have the minute to ponder on his words, as he is doubtless doing, before Linhardt speaks. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“If that were coming from anyone else, I wouldn’t believe them,” Linhardt sighs. “I think… once. Just once.”

Byleth feels his brow furrow. “Only?”

“Some people make it through life without ever falling in love.” Linhardt exhales, blowing a stray strand of hair out of his face. He reaches behind himself to fiddle with the ribbon tying his bun, eventually pulling it out entirely, and Byleth automatically holds his hand out to accept the ribbon. “And honestly—good for them.”

Byleth refuses to hesitate while fixing Linhardt’s hair. That would make his reason for asking far too obvious, and he also just doesn’t want to mess this up. “What do you mean?”

“Love is far more trouble than it’s worth,” Linhardt mutters. “It’s a lot like magic. You mess it up once, you never get it right again. And the pain stays forever, except it’s in your head rather than your hands.” He looks down at his palms as if in contemplation, and Byleth follows his gaze down to the scars and burns littering the once-pristine skin. “And you’ll always be reminded of it,” Linhardt murmurs. “Again and again.”

“Who was it?” Byleth ties the knot of the ribbon, but not before running a hand through Linhardt’s soft hair. The strands part for his fingers like waves of a crystal clear ocean.

“Who… do I love?”

Byleth nods. Linhardt doesn’t look up at him, keeps his eyes fixed on his hands, before he lets them drop down to his lap with another sigh. “Someone in the army,” he mumbles. “Within the five years you were gone. You wouldn’t know who it was.”

“Are they dead?” Byleth asks, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. It’s not a big deal, right? He shouldn’t be annoyed about Linhardt liking someone else, should he?

“Yes. I was there when they died.” Linhardt pauses, and his next words come out shakier than he must intend. “I watched them die… and I couldn’t do anything to save them. It was almost like killing them myself. Isn’t it silly? A healer who can’t heal. A mage who can’t do magic. I don’t think they ever loved me back, either.” He laughs, but he sounds nowhere near happy. “It hurt. But humans like us, we keep loving anyway. Stupid, isn’t it?”

Byleth touches Linhardt’s hair again, trying to memorize how the softness of it feels against his hands. “Yeah.” There’s something about sitting with Linhardt like this that feels like he’s finally done something _right,_ after he had forced himself to get used to being _without_ Linhardt, and Byleth wants nothing more than to forget the war exists, to forget there’s blood on both their hands, to spend their time together like this forever.

“Sometimes I wish I had never loved at all.” Linhardt stares ahead of him, out at the rest of the courtyard. A troop of soldiers are marching in the distance, probably to report something to Edelgard. “But it’s happened, so I can’t do anything about it. Then the next thing you would do is to force yourself to fall _out_ of love, right? Because surely if there was a way in, there must be a way out.”

He pauses, then leans his head back against Byleth’s chest. Like this, Byleth can play with his hair as much as he likes—and Linhardt only has to reach behind him to tug at a strand of Byleth’s hair as well, toying with it between his fingers. “But not for me,” he sighs. “I’m still stuck in love somehow. And it’s getting terribly bothersome.”

On the day they arrive at the Tailtean Plains, the rain comes down hard.

Byleth stares out at the battlefield, at the wave of enemy soldiers, at King Dimitri behind his army. The rain is a relentless downpour, obscuring their vision and soaking through their armor, but Byleth can’t bring himself to care. If they take down Dimitri now—

He still remembers Dimitri as the young student he was five years ago, before his hair grew out and he donned the armor of a king. Byleth watches the rain fall, only vaguely hears Edelgard telling their forces to be wary for a surprise attack from the Knights of Seiros. “Byleth,” he hears—it’s Manuela, slipping a pair of white gloves over her hands. “Careful out there. Something’s wrong with the soldiers.”

Byleth blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. There’s just something off, don’t you think?” Manuela sighs. “Maybe I’m just overthinking—”

Something roars a few ways away ahead of them, a sound caught between a human’s and a monster’s. Byleth whirls around to face the noise, just in time to witness—oh.

He’s only ever seen this once, years ago when he had faced Miklan of Gautier with the Lance of Ruin head-on. He had done his best not to focus on the transformation from man to beast and had subsequently wiped the image from his memory, but now it comes rushing back by the sight before him—scales breaking through skin, teeth sharpening and lengthening faster than the jaws can keep up and cutting through half-human lips, the screams of pain becoming roars of fury.

But what unnerves Byleth most is how, this close, he can see the eyes change—from a human’s eyes, wide and scared and determined all at once, to a blank red light buried beneath layers of scales, gleaming with mindless destruction.

 _Was that how I looked like?_ Byleth thinks, the Creator Sword heavy in his hands. _When I transformed into…_

“Alright,” Manuela says, very faintly, “so I _wasn’t_ overthinking, after all. What just happened?”

Hubert steps away, his narrowed gaze fixed on the growling beast. “I almost wish this were the work of Thales. But… no. That was a Crest Stone. This was a willing transformation, it seems.”

“Willing?” Byleth echoes. “But these soldiers… they’re gone forever whether they win this battle or not.”

“Yes.” Hubert shakes his head. “They staked their lives on a foolish plan. I almost… pity them.”

It certainly sounds foolish when Hubert says it, but Byleth turns to look at the demonic beast, shattered pieces of armor surrounding it as it lashes out at anything that moves. Looking at it like this, it seems almost… heroic, to sacrifice their life to achieve the goal their leader set before them.

What had Linhardt called him? _Selfless._ It seems almost selfless.

“We’ll simply have to avoid combat with it if possible,” Edelgard says, approaching from the other side. Aymr glows even in the rain. “Although that’s a small hope at best… and we do not know how many other soldiers are holding Crest Stones. We’re trained to deal with demonic beasts, but proceed with caution still, everyone.” Then, raising her voice to address the army, “This battle will leave the main force of the Kingdom annihilated! Leave no enemy general alive!”

The Imperial soldiers raise their weapons in a battle cry Byleth does not hear. He stares straight ahead towards the field, sees another Kingdom soldier beginning to writhe in agony, a Crest Stone glowing against his chest. _Selfless,_ his mind provides.

The memory of Linhardt’s illustration—of that black, hulking monster Byleth had transformed into—springs unbidden to mind. If he were to do that…

“Byleth!” someone—Edelgard—yells. “What are you doing? Don’t get distracted!” She’s already rushing ahead, axe raised above to swing down on an enemy soldier’s head. Byleth looks away before the blood can fly, and tightens his grip on the Creator Sword.

Athame is right here, tucked in his coat pocket. If he were to just…

(And yet, if he did that, if he gave up his life for Edelgard’s cause—he would never know living again, would he? What would happen then? He doesn’t know what comes after death, _doesn’t_ want to know, not when there are still so many things left in this life to do. Is it cowardly of him, to fear death so terribly like this? Or is it just a part of living, as much a part of living as breathing and seeing and eating?)

Unlike Arianrhod, there are no buildings to hide in or alleyways to lose his enemies in, only wide open fields already beginning to soak up the blood of fallen men. Byleth hurries to catch up with the rest of the army, heading straight for the transformed demonic beasts running loose throughout the plains. He can’t let the soldiers fight those—he can’t have more deaths on his and Edelgard’s hands. (But then why does his breathing tremble so when he thinks of the beast’s claws and fangs and eyes—?)

He stretches his arm out, and instead of fire or thunder it’s mire that flies from his hands, slipping out from under his nails to strike at the beast. It howls when the sludge seeps beneath its scales, but its movements only become faster and more agitated—Byleth has to force himself not to look away when its claws skewer a soldier and it snaps up another in its jaws with a sickening _crunch._ Fire, fire—Byleth calls on a Bolganone spell, ignoring how it scorches his palms in a way it hasn’t in a long time, but the beast only shakes the flames off, setting the Imperial soldiers around it on fire.

 _Why can’t I do it?_ Byleth thinks, frustrated and furious— _Why can’t I fight?_ He tries for another mire spell, but this time he misses and it splashes harmlessly onto the grass, turning it a rotting brown. He calls for it back, _attack, attack the beast,_ but his own magic snaps at him to leave it alone as it dissipates into the earth.

The beast snarls, swiping at another soldier and sending them flying back, then whips around to narrow its eyes at Byleth. _No, no, no…_

Maybe before, as a mercenary, Byleth would have kept on going—no, as a mercenary, Byleth wouldn’t even have to keep on going, because he would have killed the beast by now. He would have used his sword, not magic, to take it down—he would be right up against the beast’s maw, slashing away at its throat and soaking himself in black blood, rather than scared and cowering at a distance.

But he is not a mercenary now, he realizes, and more than anything he wants to run away. Wants to drop this sword, this skeleton, and run away from the war until he never has to fight again.

He casts a spell, almost half-heartedly, not even bothering to see what it is—and stares in disbelief at the pillar of light that descends from above and envelops the beast in a blinding light, like the heavens had opened up at his command.

The beast screeches, thrashing about—when the light fades it is immobile for a few seconds, just long enough for Empire soldiers to take it down through sheer number alone. Even from this far, Byleth can smell it—a pungent, burning stench, coming from the smoke rising above the beast’s fallen body. _What was that? A—spell? But it didn’t feel like dark or reason magic…_

There’s no time to think about it further—Byleth leaps out of the way of an oncoming wave of enemy soldiers, not bothering to attack back. He makes a beeline towards the Empire forces gathered around the body of the demonic beast instead, a Heal spell sparking to life at his palms before he’s even come close to the first injured man he sees. His leg has three giant slash marks across it, and he’s screaming so terribly it hurts, but this is what Byleth knows he can do—he can _heal,_ he’s a _healer,_ and even if it doesn’t work, even if he can’t help everyone—

“More healers, over here!” someone shouts. Byleth finishes up the magic, ignoring the burning pain in his own leg, then hurries over to the direction of the voice. Another man with his stomach ripped open, another with his bones peeking through his wounds—

Byleth skids to a stop. Another soldier has had his entire leg torn off. Blood spills everywhere, seeping into the soil and staining the grass crimson. Above him crouches Linhardt, his eyes wide open, one hand on the man’s thigh and one on the severed leg.

 _Linhardt,_ Byleth almost calls— _Linhardt, don’t look, Linhardt, you shouldn’t be doing this, Linhardt, Linhardt, Linhardt—_ because blood has never looked good on Linhardt, and all Byleth can think of is _this is my fault, this is my fault—_

Faith magic glows beneath Linhardt’s palms, so bright it’s almost burning—but Byleth keeps his eyes fixed on the sight, as silent as the rest of the soldiers around him while they watch the bone, then muscles, then skin slowly, painstakingly grow back between the man’s thigh and leg.

When the light fades Linhardt is a sickly pale, but he only stands back up and looks around him. “Who else?”

“No—” Byleth grabs his wrist, just in time before Linhardt would have wobbled and stumbled over himself. “You’re tired. That—That was magic like I’d never seen before. You need to rest before—”

Linhardt half-heartedly pulls his arm away from Byleth. “I have to…” He coughs. “I have to do as much as I can, or else…”

“Then what? You will _die_ if you overuse magic!”

Byleth hadn’t been expecting himself to yell, and apparently neither had Linhardt, because he looks back at Byleth with surprise clear on his features. The last time Byleth had said something like this, felt this same emotion, it had been when Hubert had tried to distract a demonic beast and draw it away from the rest of the class—and even then Byleth doesn’t feel as much as he does now, his breaths coming wild and fast, his grip on Linhardt’s wrist tightening so he never has to let go again.

He swallows, and speaks again, softly: “Take care of yourself, too. You won’t be helping anyone if you’re dead.”

Linhardt sighs shakily, shifting Byleth’s hand around until they’re entwining their fingers. From the corner of his eye, Byleth can see the soldiers around them surreptitiously look away. “You make a good point. Which is why I want you to take your own advice.”

“Oh.”

“I saw that magic a while ago.” Linhardt’s exhaustion softens into a small smile, barely visible even when they’re this close. “It’s called the Aura spell. Quite advanced. I’m proud of you.”

“O… Oh,” Byleth repeats, like an idiot. He tries to say something else, comes up with nothing that won’t make him sound even more like an idiot, then gives up and decides on, “I-I should go… deal with some… Kingdom soldiers or something…”

Linhardt shakes his head. “Let me go with you, then. If you won’t let me heal others, I can at least heal you, can’t I?”

“Ah. Then I can do the same, can’t I?” Byleth touches a small cut on Linhardt’s neck, and the wound instantly fades beneath the barest hint of faith magic. Linhardt blinks bemusedly, before that same small smile settles on his face again.

Someone clears their throat behind them, and they both turn to face a disgruntled-looking Jeritza. “What are you two doing?” he asks. “This is a battlefield, not a bedroom.”

Byleth frowns. “What do you—”

“Nothing! He means nothing,” Linhardt interrupts, squeezing Byleth’s hand and hurriedly dragging him over to a small copse of trees, leaving Jeritza behind. Frankly, Byleth still isn’t used to seeing the other man without his usual mask, but he supposes that would be fairly questionable armor for the battlefield. Wait, speaking of the battlefield, what did Jeritza mean by bedr—

Oh.

“Byleth? Hello?” Linhardt waves his hand in front of Byleth’s face, and he blinks back to attention. “Alright. Well, you’re the strategist here, so—”

“I wasn’t flirting with you,” Byleth blurts out.

Linhardt has a look on his face that makes it look like something in his brain has short-circuited. “I… I’m sorry? What?”

“I wasn’t flirting with you,” Byleth repeats, a little slower. “Unless you want me to. But I’ll always ask for your permission first. Because, uh. Consent. Is important.”

“Byleth,” Linhardt says, after a very long pause, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You know, the bedroom thing—” Byleth can feel himself heating up. Why now? Why does he have to understand comments like these _now,_ of all times? Maybe he shouldn’t have memorized everything Leonie had said that day. “I mean, um… It’s like…”

Linhardt just keeps staring at him. “I appreciate the concern for my… consent, but perhaps we can talk about this later. You know, when we… aren’t in the middle of a decisive battle.”

“Right! Yes. Right. That is very intelligent.”

“Thank you.” Linhardt looks both amused and concerned. “Now the bigger concern is clearing these forces out, yes? Go on, strategist. You can do this.”

Byleth nods, though when he looks back out at the fields he only has a vague idea of what they can do. With barely any cover except for these trees, they have to start picking off enemies from here and then move closer and closer until they have no choice but to leave their cover… then perhaps, just perhaps, they could defeat enough of the army to give Edelgard a straight shot towards Dimitri, who’s standing atop a heal tile at the upper rightmost corner of the plains and shouting orders at his troops. At his side is his righthand man—Dedue, Byleth thankfully remembers. He’s built tall and bulky, so he might be harder to defeat in direct combat…

A roar sounds from behind them, and Byleth turns around to see another demonic beast screeching and wiping out a half-dozen Empire soldiers in one swipe. Byleth tenses, and he can see Linhardt do the same beside him—but Byleth pushes down the urge to cast faith magic, because as much as he wants to, as much as he knows he needs to…

“You like being a healer, don’t you, Byleth?” Linhardt asks, voice barely audible.

“I… I think… Yes.”

Linhardt sighs. “That’s good. That’s… I’m happy for you.”

They fire long-range magic from their cover of trees, though every Fire spell singes Byleth’s hands and every Wind spell leaves cuts on Linhardt’s palms—in the distance they see an arrow hiss through the air, burying itself in the back of Sylvain’s head, and several feet behind him Ashe crumples to his knees with a sob. A familiar voice—Rhea?—shouts across the field, but the rain is coming down too hard for the Knights of Seiros to pose much threat against the Empire army now.

Slowly, surely, they inch closer to the edge of the woods. Slowly, surely, the Kingdom forces begin to dwindle—and more begin to turn into demonic beasts rampaging through the plains. Linhardt’s spells are slowing, some fizzing out before they reach their target, and Byleth would be lying if he said he weren’t tiring, either. They can’t go on like this for forever, and yet…

At first Byleth doesn’t register the roar—there are so many of them ringing out all throughout the fields that he can hardly differentiate one from the other. But then the beast roars again, this one far louder and deeper than the rest, and the plains _rumble_ with its strength. Byleth stumbles, catching himself on a tree trunk, and Linhardt backs up against some bushes. “What was—”

It roars again—and then something falls from the sky to pierce straight into the earth, narrowly avoiding Linhardt’s chest and Byleth’s head. Byleth scrambles to get behind another tree before the giant demonic beast looming above them can bring its claws down again—his next instinct is to cast a Bolganone spell, because he highly doubts a bit of fire will do anything against the unnaturally large beast’s hide, but instead of magic, sharp, scorching pain sears his arms and sends Byleth nearly crumpling to his knees. _No—did I use too much magic?_ But if he can’t cast anything—

“Byleth!” It’s Linhardt, crouched beneath a boulder, his hands sparking with what looks like wind magic. “Get down, now!”

“But—” Byleth can hear it more than he can see it, the beast thrashing wildly around and knocking the nearby trees over. It angles its head down, blood dripping down its maw, and stares—straight at Linhardt. “No! Lin—”

He breaks into a run, reaching and reaching and reaching but the Creator Sword is too short, his magic refuses to come alive, and _he’s too slow, too slow, he doesn’t want to see Linhardt die again—_

The wind that bursts from Linhardt’s hands wrestles his very breath from his lungs.

Byleth falls back, staring up at Linhardt—wind magic _floods_ the area, the few still-standing trees bending under its force. The beast screeches, attempting a swipe at Linhardt, but wind coalesces and repels its claw as if forming a barrier. The hissing of wind is so loud it rivals the roars echoing around them, drowning out all other noise and leaving Byleth’s ears ringing from the clamor. In the middle of the growing cyclone is Linhardt, eyes squeezed shut, robes billowing out behind him, the magic in his hands so potent it feels almost alive.

Above him, the beast shrieks—and only then does Byleth realize its left arm, the one closest to the magic, is beginning to _dissolve._

No, dissolve doesn’t seem like the right word—but the wind is, somehow, wearing its thick hide down. Its scales are being ripped right off of its arm, the gauntlet-like armor on its claws folding under the pressure, and all Byleth can do is _watch_ as the magic weathers away at the beast’s body. There, that word— _weathering,_ as if the beast were nothing more than a rock, eroded by the wind.

The beast screams, its pain resonating all across the plains. This is no method for killing—this is a torture device, Byleth realizes, the Cutting Gale spell specifically modified to inflict as much pain as possible.

Somehow the monster manages to break free from the wind’s hold, its other arm striking wildly at the ground—trees and rocks fly up, shattering against the thinning barrier around Linhardt, and the sight kicks Byleth back into action. He vaults over debris and bodies alike, scrabbling for purchase on the uneven ground, because all he can think of is how this magic feels, how deep its scars will go in Linhardt’s palms—and it shouldn’t _be that way,_ he shouldn’t be here, why did this have to happen? Byleth wants to turn back time all the way back to five years ago, if only to keep Linhardt from becoming what he is now—

Blades of wind narrowly avoid slicing his chest open. Byleth ducks and skids to a stop right before the beast would have crushed his skull as well—he grabs Linhardt around his torso, ignoring his weak protest, and carries him out of the way of the monster’s one working arm. The magic is already beginning to weaken and die down around them—Byleth can taste the residue of it in the air if he tries hard enough, the dust particles swirling along his tongue and settling into his lungs.

The beast howls as it crumples to its knees, or what passes for its knees—its left arm is almost completely gone, reduced to bits of bone and viscera scattered across the grass. Byleth doesn’t know what else to do but stare, frozen in place, as it swivels its head around to glare at them.

“Byleth,” Linhardt murmurs—his hand comes up to touch Byleth’s cheek, jolting him back to reality. There’s warm blood trickling from an opened gash on Linhardt’s palms, and Byleth can’t decide between healing him or getting them away from here first. “Let go.”

“That—” Byleth has never quite hated words so much. “That magic, it was—”

Linhardt sighs. “Please, not now.” With surprising agility, he slips out of Byleth’s grip and holds his arms up again, and the wind begins to pick up once more. But Byleth can tell it’s far weaker and slower this time, and it hardly even tickles the beast’s nose as it growls and begins to head towards them, the ground rumbling under its stomps. Its claws and fangs gleam with blood, sunlight bouncing off and reflecting back in Linhardt’s eyes—

Byleth grabs him again, ignoring the wind beginning to cut into his arms. “Stop it!”

Linhardt groans in frustration. “ _You_ stop it—”

“No! I—” _can’t lose you, need to help you, can’t let you do this, this isn’t you this isn’t you this isn’t you this shouldn’t be you—_ “Linhardt,” Byleth says, at a loss for any other words, “ _please,_ I’ll do it, I’ll take care of this, please don’t hurt yourself—”

The beast roars again, and something about it sounds different—Byleth looks up, right as he stares up at the monster’s armored arm, coming down fast. Linhardt follows his gaze to stare wide-eyed up at the beast, and Byleth curses as he blindly reaches for a Divine Pulse—

But his concentration breaks when air shoves him out of the way and he’s sent tumbling over rocks and bushes. Panic pushes him to scrabble back up to his feet, only in time to hear a _snap_ that makes his blood run cold.

The winds rise up in a roar, forming into blades sharper than any sword—they rush the beast all at once, cutting deep into its hide and slicing its armor into pieces. The monster shrieks as the magic slashes into its opened maw—its legs go next, and it crumples to the ground—and Byleth doesn’t stop to watch any longer because all he can see is Linhardt at the center of the whirling winds, one arm raised above himself to control his magic and the other bent at a sickening, unnatural angle.

His mouth falls open in a pained scream, the sound drowned out by the winds. _No,_ Byleth thinks, _no, not him, please, no—_

Byleth’s running before he can think better of it, diving straight through the magic that only seems to intensify as if in tandem with its creator’s pain—yet somehow Byleth doesn’t care, because all he can think of is that it’s _Linhardt’s_ magic, and Linhardt would never, _could_ never hurt him, the same way he could never hurt Linhardt. He barrels through the veritable tempest until he can wrap his arms around Linhardt’s torso and drag him behind a fallen tree—“Linhardt,” he calls, “Linhardt, _Linhardt,_ ” he says, again and again like somehow his name could save either of them.

Linhardt has his eyes screwed shut, and when he opens his mouth all he manages is a hoarse “Byleth” and “I’m sorry, it hurts, I—” and Byleth can barely hear a thing because the winds are still whirling all around them, refusing to die down—

In this moment, all Byleth can think about is Linhardt still in his grip, his hair falling over Byleth’s arms, his pale skin getting paler by the second, his breaths too-shallow and not at all like his even breathing in his sleep. In this moment, all Byleth can think about is how it had felt like they had just had tea a half hour ago, and how Linhardt had told him about how falling in love felt like, and how Byleth had touched his hair and tied it for him and _oh,_ how he wishes he could do that everyday so terribly and deeply that it physically hurts to see him like this now.

There is an ungodly amount of things Byleth still wants to do with Linhardt—he wants to heal his hands over and over until they never have to hurt again, wants to tuck his hair behind his ear and run his fingers through the strands, wants and wants and wants to keep wanting because somehow he knows he will never stop wanting more of Linhardt. Wants Linhardt to want him. Wants to be overwhelmed with want, over and over and over.

Turning back time seems like a cheap escape right now. Byleth sets Linhardt on his lap, so gently it’s somehow painful, and steadies his shaking hands above Linhardt’s broken arm. His eyes fix themselves on the angle it’s bent at, on the white of bone he can see peering from his elbow—

 _Close to your heart,_ he can hear Linhardt telling him, on a sunny afternoon in his dorm. _The thing about magic is that it listens._

“Please,” Byleth whispers, as pathetic sparks of the Recover spell flicker in his palms. “Please, please, please.” _I can’t lose you. Not after everything._ But the faith magic refuses to come to life, and all it does is singe Linhardt’s skin even further.

Byleth wants to scream in frustration—why? Why now? Why can’t he get anything right? If their roles were reversed, they’d both be up and running by now. No, the battle would be _over_ by now, because Linhardt is hundreds of times stronger than him in so many ways and now Byleth can’t even save the person who had just saved him. _Why? Why? Why?_

“Linhardt,” he murmurs again, not bothering to stop the heat behind his eyes from spilling out and down his cheeks. “Linhardt, please, I… I…”

There are words he needs to say—but whatever they are they continue to evade him, as if telling him _not now, not here—tell him when he can hear you, tell him when he can say them back._

“Please,” Byleth says—sobs—again, his tears dripping down to speckle Linhardt’s face. When was the last time he had cried? “I can’t… Linhardt…”

_How can I do this without you?_

“Byleth,” Linhardt breathes, so softly Byleth has to bend down and press their foreheads together to hear him. He raises his good arm and flicks his wrist—the wind magic instantly dissipates into nothing more than a gentle breeze, one that ruffles Byleth’s hair and twines through his fingers as if to hold his hand. “It hurts,” Linhardt whimpers, his eyes fluttering open and closed just long enough for Byleth to catch a glimpse of the ocean blue color.

“I’m s-sorry,” Byleth whispers, closing his own eyes—if he has to look at Linhardt with so much _pain_ in his face a moment longer, he might never be able to speak again. “I’m sorry, I can’t—I don’t know how—tell me how to help you,” he asks, _begs._ “Please.”

Coughing weakly, Linhardt lifts his hand again to touch his, and Byleth forces himself for one more try. Magic glimmers briefly with familiar light, but it takes everything in Byleth to keep it going. Linhardt’s hand is warm, just barely, but it promises hope, it promises _life,_ and Byleth can’t abandon that. He has to… He has to believe that he can do it… He has to believe that Linhardt can live, that all they’ve been through wasn’t for nothing, that he doesn’t have to see Linhardt die in his arms like this.

_It’s called faith magic for a reason, Byleth. Faith means—faith in others, in the person you’re healing… Faith in yourself, most of all._

Byleth focuses on the warmth of Linhardt’s hand, on the shallow beat of his heart, on his breaths beside his ear—and the Recover spell _flares_ to life, enveloping Linhardt’s arm with near-blinding light. Byleth’s first instinct is to fall back from shock, but he shuts the urge down and pours every bit of his magic, of his _being,_ into the spell. _Linhardt, Linhardt, please—_

Pain sears all across Byleth’s arm, and he almost collapses from the agony. Is this what Linhardt is feeling? Is this what Linhardt has _been_ feeling, for the past several minutes, because Byleth couldn’t get his magic to work? Byleth grits his teeth and heals, heals, _heals_ until the pain courses through his body, as all-encompassing as if it had been poured into his veins in place of his blood, but none of that matters as long as Linhardt never has to hurt like this again.

When Byleth lets the spell fade, Linhardt’s arm—while still bloody and bruised and littered with cuts from his own magic—is set back to normal.

“Lin?” Byleth whispers, the nickname coming out unbidden—but Linhardt doesn’t respond, his head lolling to rest in the inside of Byleth’s elbow. A second passes, two—and then Byleth hears it, that gentle even breathing he’s long come to memorize.

He bites back another sob and pulls Linhardt closer to his chest, holding on as tight as his aching arms will allow. Around him, the battle rages on, but right now feels like a victory of their own.

It’s quiet when Linhardt comes to.

Byleth doesn’t register it at first, because seeing Linhardt’s half-asleep look in the dim light of the morning sunrays is a sight he has grown accustomed to seeing—but then Byleth shakes his own sleep-induced spiderwebs out of his head and realizes that they’re in Linhardt’s tent, not in the safety of his dorm room in the monastery, and that they won’t be going back there anytime soon.

“Are you alright?” Byleth asks, ignoring the stiffness in his neck from his impromptu nap, and shifts closer to cast a light Heal spell across Linhardt’s arm again.

Linhardt sighs, staring up at the tent fabric above them. It smells of old books and dried ink in here, and if Byleth focuses he can catch other faint scents: candle wax, angelica herbs, wind magic. Has wind magic always had a smell, or is he only noticing it now? “Sore. Your healing magic still needs some work, I see.”

Byleth frowns. “Go easy on me.”

“If I did, you’d never learn. But you certainly did well for your first try on a broken limb.” Linhardt sits up, wincing slightly, and pries Byleth’s hand off his arm. The magic sputters out, and Byleth’s too tired to try again; he lets his hand drop onto Linhardt’s lap instead. “What happened while I was out?”

“We won.” Byleth shrugs. “Edelgard killed Dimitri. Rhea’s forces retreated to Fhirdiad. We’ll be marching there after everyone has fully recovered—they said turning back to head to the monastery would be wasting time.”

Linhardt hums. “I see. I expected nothing less, really.” He places a hand over Byleth’s stinging arms, faith magic pulsing gently under his palm, and once again Byleth can’t bring himself to protest. The Heal spell is too weak to even be of much effort for Linhardt to cast, and… well, it feels good, the magic soothing his tired muscles. “How are you feeling?”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Linhardt shakes his head. “Doesn’t sound like a feeling I know.”

“Linhardt—”

“No arguments.” Linhardt pokes his chest. “I chose to fight. I chose to modify that spell for my own usage. Please, Byleth—” His expression softens, and he finally looks more like _himself_ again, his sleepy, researching, pacifist self. “You don’t need to worry so much about me. About… what-could-have-beens or whatever. What’s done is done.”

Byleth swallows, leaning into Linhardt’s touch. Linhardt doesn’t move as Byleth props his chin atop Linhardt’s shoulder, his breath tickling long, dark green hair. “I was… so scared,” he murmurs, so quiet he can barely hear himself. “I’ve… I’d never felt that way before. But I was… terrified. I didn’t want to lose you. Not you.” He’s said these words before, but goodness knows he will never tire of repeating them if it means making sure Linhardt knows how he feels. “Never you.”

Linhardt says nothing, only moves his hands further up to focus on Byleth’s shoulder.

“It was always the other way around, with us.” Byleth attempts another sloppy shrug. “I’d get myself injured during battle, and I’d pass out, and then when I woke up, you’d always be there to heal me. But this time I was in your place, and you were in mine, and…” His hands tighten into fists, gripping onto the rumpled blankets so hard he fears he might rip straight through the cloth. “I don’t want you to die, Linhardt.”

“I don’t want to die, either,” Linhardt finally mumbles. “But I don’t want you to die, too, Byleth.”

“I—Yes, but—”

“There are people who will miss you if you die,” Linhardt interrupts, possibly for the third time. But his voice is shaking when he speaks, and Byleth can’t bring himself to say anything in protest. “Including me, you silly thing. And you told me you wouldn’t break your promise this time around, so—so—”

“It goes both ways,” Byleth hurries to say, pulling away from Linhardt to meet his wide eyes. “I won’t leave you. So you can’t leave me either. Okay?”

“That’s— _ugh…_ ” Linhardt buries his face in his hands, breaking the Heal spell for a moment. “I don’t want to lose you again,” he says, after several long seconds of silence—his voice is barely louder than a breath, and he slumps against Byleth’s chest in weariness. “I’m telling you to be afraid of losing yourself, too.”

Byleth touches Linhardt’s hair, running his fingers gently down the locks. They’re knotted beyond belief, but he manages to untangle them relatively painlessly. Another niche skill gifted by Sothis, it seems. “You don’t have to tell me that. I already am.”

“Then _act_ like it,” Linhardt grumbles, straightening to re-cast the Heal spell on Byleth’s arm. “You just keep running headlong into danger without bothering to think of the consequences, and let me be the first to tell you that it gets old very quick when I have to lag behind you and clean up your injuries and tell you to _take care of yourself,_ because for goodness’ sake, I…”

He trails off there—but Byleth wouldn’t have heard whatever he would have said next anyway, because there’s a sudden burst of sunshine warmth from the faith magic flooding his senses like a deluge of emotions.

“What was that?” Byleth asks, perhaps a bit too sharp—Linhardt jolts in surprise. “Sorry—but that was… that…”

Linhardt stares at him. “Care to explain?”

“That feeling,” Byleth blurts out. “The one… that feels like sunlight, or…”

_When I’m sure about it, I’ll tell you then. Whether it’s a good thing or not._

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Byleth asks, leaing closer as if the answer would be on Linhardt’s face. Linhardt hurriedly backs away, but Byleth had caught a glimpse of understanding that had dawned on Linhardt’s eyes for a split second. “You told me you would tell me about it, before, once you were… once you were sure about it, or something…”

Linhardt pulls his hands away, and though the warmth fades Byleth grabs onto the ends of the memory of it anyway, holds it tight to his chest and tries to keep it there forever next to his good-for-nothing heart. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Byleth frowns. “You do. I _know_ you do.” He’s _tired_ of avoiding this problem of theirs, tired of never getting a satisfying explanation to any of his questions, tired of never understanding the emotions everyone else seems to already know about. Why does he have to start from the beginning when the rest of those around him are already at the top? It’s tiring, and he hates it, and he just wants to _know_ what this _means already._ “Please, Linhardt?”

A long pause. Then Linhardt sighs and takes his hand, very gently, very lightly. One strong gust of wind could pull them away from each other with little effort. “Fine,” he mumbles. “How about this? I’ll do it again, and you tell me what you think it is.”

Still not as direct as Byleth wants—would it hurt to just give him a straightforward answer?—but at least Linhardt finally seems to be doing it willingly. “Okay.”

Linhardt sighs when he casts the Heal spell, and—Byleth shivers. Right away he can already tell this magic is different from what both of them are used to, because instead of focusing on one spot it spreads throughout his entire body, his hair frizzing up with static. And then…

That sunshine warmth.

Byleth relaxes into Linhardt’s touch, almost melting into it—earlier he hadn’t been able to take it in before surprise overrode him, but now all he wants to do is drown himself in the feeling. When was the last time he had felt it? It must have been right before that battle with Rhea in Garreg Mach—to him it had only been some scant few months ago, but for Linhardt it’s been five years since he let himself feel this, whatever it is. Does he miss it, too? Does having this emotion feel as warm as sunlight to him, too?

By the goddess, he hopes so.

“Well?” Linhardt asks. His voice is trembling, just slightly. “Figured it out yet?”

Byleth shakes his head. “Hold on.” When had he felt this before? The first time had been during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, hadn’t it, when he had healed Linhardt’s hands, burnt by accidental magic. Then the second time was days after Byleth had turned into that black magic monster and Sothis had disappeared, when he had finally spoken to Linhardt again after avoiding him in fear of hurting him again. Then finally, before the battle of Garreg Mach, before he’d disappeared and left Linhardt behind…

It has always been soft, tender, warm. If there were a feeling for floating on a fluffy cloud warmed by sunlight, it would be this. Or—perching atop a branch on a tree, leaves tickling his arms and birdsong whispering through the wind… or that little feeling Byleth gets when he’s boiling water and preparing tea for the two of them, because he has always felt strangely warm at the promise of spending time with—

Wait. Wait a minute.

That feeling when he’s having tea with Linhardt, sitting with him under the shade of their tree—or that feeling when Linhardt invites him to his room for research, and Byleth no longer has to clear out the spot for himself on the floor—or that feeling when Linhardt just smiles at him, and Byleth wants terribly, horribly, to hold him tight and touch his hair and so many other things he wants that it feels like a maelstrom of desires fighting for priority.

That feeling… that feeling…

He snaps his gaze up to look into Linhardt’s eyes—so big and blue and beautiful and Byleth wants nothing more than to look into them for the rest of his life—but all he can say is “Oh.”

Because— _oh._

Linhardt rolls his eyes. “Looks like you figured it out. Then—” The magic abruptly comes to a stop, and with it the warmth Byleth had almost begun to grow used to. “I’ll be going now.”

“What? No!” Byleth grabs onto Linhardt’s wrist— _not now,_ he thinks, not when he’s just realized something that was, in retrospect, supremely obvious. “Don’t go. I… I…”

“Don’t bother,” Linhardt sighs. He doesn’t pull away, but he isn’t making any effort to come closer either. Byleth is this close to exploding from frustration. “Listen, I… know you don’t feel the same. You didn’t five years ago—why would you now?” He shrugs. “That’s why I tried to… stop it. Stop…”

“Loving?” Byleth finishes, when Linhardt seems unable to say the word.

Linhardt sighs. He shifts his wrist around, and Byleth lightens his grip on him—he hadn’t realized how tight he had been holding on, and Linhardt pouts as he flexes his wrist back to feeling. “I did at least get better at hiding my emotions, though, didn’t I? You didn’t make a comment on this until now,” he dryly asks.

Byleth shakes his head. “Only now. I…” He moves to hold onto Linhardt’s hand, but pulls back at the last second. _Why? Why can’t I tell him? Why don’t I…_ “But it came back?”

“It’s…” Linhardt looks away for a moment, staring fixedly down at the floor. His hair tumbles down his shoulders, framing his face like the night sky against the moon. And then, softly, so lowly Byleth can barely hear him: “I was… scared. To keep loving you, when you came back. Because—we are at _war,_ Byleth.” His voice quivers, and he has to pause before speaking again. “The possibility of you dying—for real, this time—is all too real. I don’t want to be happy again just to be crushed when it inevitably happens.”

“What do you…”

“You know what it’s like, don’t you?” Linhardt cuts in, his voice sharp but not harsh. “To love someone so much you want to never be apart from them—only for some ridiculous, stupid, unfair thing to take them away from you.” He pauses, breathes. “Your friend. The goddess.”

Byleth says nothing, only looks down at his lap.

“So you must know how it feels. When someone is gone, so quickly and suddenly, and you did not even get the chance to say anything to them before—” Linhardt abruptly cuts himself off, shaking his head, his hand moving to grab Byleth’s in a half-aborted motion. “I don’t want that to happen again! Alright? I don’t—I don’t want to be left behind again, because you went and got yourself killed and I was too slow to save you, and… and… and I’d almost rather die myself, so I wouldn’t have to go through the same pain!”

Quiet descends on them, interspersed by Linhardt’s shaky breaths. Byleth holds onto him again, tight, and lets the both of them breathe for a few long, silent minutes. “So there,” Linhardt eventually mumbles, voice half-muffled—he’s pressed his face against Byleth’s shoulder. “Does that make me a coward?”

“No,” Byleth says.

“Very reassuring. Thank you.”

“You’re not a coward,” Byleth tells him, “because there’s nothing to be scared of. I promised, didn’t I? I’m not leaving you again. And I’m not letting you die, either.”

Linhardt coughs out a laugh. “You… Yes. You did. You did say that. But I can guarantee the Archbishop is not going to care about a promise you made. Do you imagine she would stop in the middle of blasting you to bits because you told her you promised not to leave me, and she would simply say, ‘oh, alright, then,’ and—”

“How do you know I don’t feel the same?”

For a minute Linhardt says nothing, only tightens his hold on Byleth’s arm; then, after perhaps five inhales and exhales, “You didn’t know what love was until now.”

“Maybe,” Byleth says, “but you’re the one who told me I don’t always have to find the name for an emotion.” _Sometimes it’s fine to let it be,_ he can still remember. Is that what Linhardt has been doing, all this time, all these years? Letting the feeling be, even when it must have hurt? “Aren’t I right?”

Linhardt scowls. “What exactly are you trying to say with this? Because—”

“You said you can feel emotions through faith magic as well.” Byleth tightens his grip on Linhardt’s hand, trying not to think about how close they finally are. “Right?”

Linhardt swallows, looking down at their interlaced fingers. “O… Only sometimes.”

“Okay.” Byleth sighs, focuses, closes his eyes. “Then pay attention.”

Byleth used to think love was the most complicated emotion a human could experience—he had never fully understood it, after all, even after different people had explained it to him in their own ways. It had always evaded him—it was something complex, intricate, impossible to comprehend. And thinking about it, perhaps he was never meant to understand it at all—if love is for humans, then it can’t be for him and his stillborn heart.

But as he casts the Heal spell on the scars of Linhardt’s hands, feels warmth spread throughout both their persons—Byleth almost wants to laugh at himself. Because love is something simple, and he’s understood it this whole time without even knowing it. Love is just like magic—something that listens, something to treat as an equal. Something _alive._ Humans were _born_ to love and be loved.

And does his humanity even matter by this point? If he can understand happiness and sadness and anger, then love is just the same as the rest. Besides, if he’s being honest—

At first Byleth feels confusion from Linhardt, then the slow realization, the shock. Then the sudden surge of overwhelming _warmth_ in his chest, an onslaught of the feeling Byleth now knows to call as love. _Love, love, love—_ he can’t get enough of it now. He never _wants_ to get enough of it.

If he’s being honest, no one’s stopping him from loving Linhardt, is there?

“You…” Linhardt squeezes his hand, but Byleth keeps the Heal spell going. “You really are a strange one. To think…”

“Is it so strange?” Byleth reaches up and tucks a lock of his dark green hair behind his ear, feeling a smile rise unbidden to his face when Linhardt leans into his touch. The words feel familiar, as if they had said them five years ago, and the thought of how far they’ve come, how long they’ve waited, how long they still have left makes Byleth’s voice quiver as he speaks. “To be in love with you?”

The feeling of warmth shifts, just slightly— _love,_ Byleth thinks at first, then— _no. Loved. In love._

“I’m not quite sure how to feel, that it took you this long to realize that,” Linhardt mutters, brushing Byleth’s hair out of his face so it falls down his back instead. His hand stays there and refuses to move, and the knowledge that Linhardt can do things like that without it being strange has Byleth’s entire body alight with elation. “Hmm… Do you only like me with this hairstyle, perhaps?”

Byleth scratches his cheek, not bothering to stamp down the nervous habit by this point. “I don’t think I felt anything for you five years ago,” he admits.

“Thanks. Really.”

“But I do now.” Byleth tilts his head, and Linhardt runs his fingers through his long hair. “When I came back, when I saw you again, I thought you looked…”

A long pause. Byleth lets it drag on, furiously scouring his vocabulary for the right word, until Linhardt finally prompts, “Well, go on.”

“I don’t know.” Byleth thinks back to that time, when he had felt healing magic in the midst of battle—and not just any healing magic but _Linhardt’s,_ specifically, the magic that feels like scattered sunshine and smells of the fragrance of angelica. When he had seen Linhardt on top of the hill, his hands still aglow with a spell, his hair long and windswept across pale skin… “Ethereal, I guess.”

“You—” Linhardt chokes. “You _guess?_ ”

“I can’t think of a better word. Sorry.”

“No, um…” Linhardt looks down, avoiding his gaze, and Byleth catches a glance of the blush dusting his cheeks. “So it really was the hair. Alright. I’ll take note of that when I next need to seduce someone.”

Byleth scowls. “You’re not seducing anyone.”

“Anyone but you?” Linhardt asks, pushing his hair back again.

“I…” Byleth wonders how exactly Linhardt would seduce him, then hurriedly shuts that thought down before it can get any further. “Yes. Okay.” Then, just to stop Linhardt from laughing at him, “Why do you keep touching my hair?”

Linhardt pauses. “You don’t like it?”

“N-No, I do. I like it. Please continue,” Byleth stammers, at the risk of sounding embarrassingly desperate. Linhardt huffs out a laugh and does so. “But today you’re… doing it… more than usual. Um, I don’t know where I was going with this.”

“Hmm.” Linhardt smiles, something small and secret. “Because I would like to kiss you now, and long hair gets in the way of that.”

It takes a few incredibly long seconds for the words to properly process in Byleth’s head; when they do, he almost rips himself away from Linhardt and barrels out of the tent. Fortunately, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Sothis in his head yells at him to stay still. Unfortunately, the only thing that comes out of his mouth is “Uh.”

“That’s a disappointing response.”

“I… don’t know what to…” Byleth shrugs awkwardly. He may have thought of—of _kissing,_ in theory, specifically kissing Linhardt, but he doesn’t have the slightest inkling as to how it actually works. He may have seen Ashe and Caspar kissing for all of two seconds, but that’s hardly the first thing he wants to think about when searching for reference.

Linhardt’s eyes widen in realization. “You don’t… You’ve never?”

Byleth has to keep himself from shying away in embarrassment—in the end he settles for turning his face away from Linhardt, hastily rearranging his hair so that it drapes down the sides of his reddening face like a curtain. “Of course not,” he mumbles. “When would I have ever… I never had…”

“So I’ll be your _first._ ”

“I… It’s not that important, right?”

Linhardt laughs, pushing Byleth’s hair back again behind his ears. “Well, do you want to? Kiss, I mean.”

“Yes,” Byleth instantly says.

“Oh. I… thought you would be more hesitant.”

“Yes,” Byleth repeats, a little slower. “But I want to learn.” And, after an embarrassing moment’s thought, “From you.”

“Oh,” Linhardt says again, this time softer. Then he smiles, small and gentle, and Byleth wishes he could melt into the love he doesn’t need magic to feel. “Alright. It isn’t particularly… difficult, but…”

Byleth leans forward until their faces are mere inches from each other. This close, he can see every little detail on Linhardt’s face—the exact shade of blue his eyes are, the length of his criminally long lashes, the curve of his lips Byleth is used to seeing in a pout. “I’m ready,” he announces, although really he’s just doing his best to keep the embarrassment at bay. “Can you kiss me now?”

“Impatient, aren’t you?” Linhardt’s smile grows. He sweeps Byleth’s stray hair out of his face, then places one hand on Byleth’s cheek. “Okay. Close your eyes.”

Byleth doesn’t really want to—he wants to see how Linhardt looks, because they’ve never been quite this close before—but Linhardt sounds like he knows what he’s doing, so he complies. For a moment, there’s nothing but darkness and the faint sound of Linhardt’s breathing—

And then. And then.

He doesn’t quite realize it’s happening at first, because all he knows is that there’s a bit of pressure on his mouth—and then Byleth realizes _oh, it’s Linhardt, Linhardt’s kissing me,_ and he almost surges forward in excitement. It feels like too much and not enough at once, and Byleth instinctively reaches up to wrap his arms around Linhardt’s neck and pull him closer, hands tangling in his hair. Linhardt makes a small noise, somehow managing to sound amused and surprised and _pleading_ at the same time, and he quickly draws back, to Byleth’s disappointment.

“Again?” Byleth immediately asks.

Linhardt laughs again, shaking his head. “Weren’t you all shy some two minutes ago? You absolute devil.”

“I-It feels good,” Byleth mutters, looking down. But he can’t help it—he wants it again, he wants more of it, he wants to see what else they can do together. Being this close to Linhardt had been impossible before, but now… but now. Now he wants to hold on tight to this chance he’s finally taken. “You feel good, Linhardt.”

Linhardt flushes. Byleth thinks he far prefers this sort of red on him. “That’s a little… Isn’t this a bit fast? And here I said we would be taking it slow.”

“Do you want to?”

“I thought _you_ wanted to.”

Byleth laughs—he hopes he never gets tired of how laughter feels like bubbles or soap suds, rising up to spill out from his mouth. Linhardt looks pleasantly surprised. “It’s okay with me,” he says, “but I think we’ve waited long enough too. So it’s probably fine.”

Linhardt blinks at him. “You’re saying, what, having tea together and… and healing each other after battle was our way of taking it slow?”

“I guess.” Byleth shrugs again. “It was a really slow development, at least.”

“You never fail to amaze. Usually with your lack of any real thinking.” But Linhardt leans forward again, pressing his lips to the underside of Byleth’s jaw, then moving to nip his ear before Byleth can even fully recover from what just happened. In a low undertone, Linhardt murmurs, “Though I suppose that’s one of your stranger charms.”

“A-Ah…” Byleth squirms, suddenly remembers Linhardt had told him that he squirms, and hurriedly stops squirming. Linhardt has moved from his ear to his neck now, and it’s taking everything in Byleth not to fly right out of the tent from sheer _sensation._ This alone is making him dizzy, and he doesn’t even want to think about how it might feel if Linhardt… if he… if Byleth…

The light bites suddenly stop, and Byleth hesitantly cracks open an eye—he hadn’t even been aware he’d shut them. “Is it too much?” Linhardt asks, uncharacteristically gently.

“I… It feels… like…” Byleth swallows. He may understand love now, but he will never be much of a wordsmith. “I don’t know, but…”

“Okay. Um…” Linhardt straightens, taking Byleth’s hand. Only now does Byleth realize he had been shaking, and he wants to kick himself. Why now, of all times, does he have to lose composure? He doesn’t even know why he’s nervous, why everything feels unbearably _overwhelming._ “Byleth,” he hears Linhardt speak, as if from very far away—“are you alright? Stay with me.”

Byleth inhales, squeezes Linhardt’s hand and feels him squeeze back, and uses the feeling to steady himself back down to reality. When his chest doesn’t feel ready to collapse in itself, he looks back up into Linhardt’s worried eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I don’t… I’m not… I don’t know why.”

“You didn’t like it?” Linhardt tries. He shifts closer, his other hand moving to absently finger-comb Byleth’s hair.

“T-That’s not it. I mean, I… I did like it. I do.” The words make his cheeks feel hot, for some reason, and Byleth hurries to continue before Linhardt can see. “But it felt… what you said. It felt too much, I think. I want to do it again, though.”

Linhardt hums. “But not now.”

“But not now,” Byleth agrees. Then, perhaps a bit too eagerly, “But we can still kiss, right?”

Linhardt laughs under his breath, the soft sound burrowing its way into Byleth’s chest until it feels as much a part of his heart as his arteries and blood vessels. “Yes. Of course. Whatever you want, you ridiculous…”

He doesn’t finish whatever he had meant to say, because Byleth presses forward to meet his lips again—it feels as good as the first time around, and though it’s teetering on the edge of _too much,_ it’s still safe in the zone of _just right._ Byleth doesn’t know how else to explain the feeling of kissing, especially kissing Linhardt, because it feels like everything he’s ever wanted and everything he’s been waiting for, and by the goddess, Byleth hopes this never has to stop.

Linhardt’s hand in his hair tightens and pulls, just slightly, and Byleth sighs into his mouth. There is a war, he knows—they are at wartime, he _knows._ And yet, the thought of losing seems so far away, when this moment right now makes Byleth feel as if they’ve finally won.

“Ah—” Linhardt draws back, looking endearingly dazed, and he laughs again when Byleth leans forward to chase his mouth. “Wait—Byleth, are you… alright?”

“What?” Byleth can’t quite tear his gaze away from Linhardt’s lips, plush pink and kiss-swollen. _He_ did that. He can _keep_ doing that. The thought is almost too much.

“You’re…” Linhardt reaches up, his thumb brushing something away from Byleth’s cheeks, and it takes Byleth a second to realize his face feels wet. “You’re crying. I’ve… never seen you cry.”

Byleth blinks, and—more wetness tumbles down his face. “Oh.” He’s been crying an awful lot recently, and both times are because of Linhardt. It had been different when Sothis had disappeared—he’d felt more empty than anything, as if incapable of feeling anything other than a grief so deep and all-encompassing that whatever emotions he had learned to have had been ripped away from him in an instant, just like Sothis herself. But now… “I’m not… I’m not sad,” he tries to explain, but his voice is wavering, threatening to break. “I just… I…”

Linhardt leans forward, kissing just below his mouth. “Too much again?”

“Maybe?” Byleth tries. He can hear the crack in his voice, and he dearly hopes Linhardt isn’t currently filing the sound away to make fun of him for it later. He sifts through his current emotions like they’re folder files in a catalog—or tries to, anyway, because his head is muddled and he can hardly breathe properly—and finally realizes what he’s crying like a child over. “I love you too much, I think.”

For a moment, Linhardt can only stare at him. Then he pulls back, folds his arms over his chest, and heaves a deep sigh. “Byleth, if you want me to keep functioning properly, you need to stop saying things like that without warning.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.” Byleth frowns. He thought that had been a very concise way of explaining how he felt (feels, will always feel), but maybe he should have asked first. This fits under the ‘things to get consent for before doing’ category, doesn’t it. “I’ll ask next time. I don’t want you to malfunction.”

Linhardt breaks into a laugh, another charming, chiming sound, and Byleth can only stare at him blankly. The only times he’s heard Linhardt laugh so many times in a row before was back during their academy days, when there had been no war looming over their heads and their biggest concerns were tomorrow’s homework. “I was teasing. You can tell me that as many times as you want.”

“Oh,” Byleth says again, brightening. Then he crawls atop Linhardt in the sleeping bag, grinning openly at Linhardt’s surprised yelp, and peppers his face with kisses. “I love you,” he tells a laughing Linhardt. “Love you… I love you… I love you.”

Why had it taken them so long to say this? Byleth will never be very fond of words, but these three come so _easily._

Linhardt laughs, and smiles, and when he says “ _Byleth_ ” his voice comes out shaky and wet. Byleth shifts around to lie next to him in the sleeping bag, kissing the saltwater off Linhardt’s face. “I—Sorry,” Linhardt whispers, soft and shivering, “I just… I love you too, I really—”

Something hot is building behind Byleth’s own eyes, and he hopes he isn’t about to start crying again, because he has a feeling Linhardt’s going to follow his lead, and then they’re both going to be crying and then that’ll just be a mess. “I’m sorry it took me this long,” Byleth murmurs, kissing the side of his face, close to his ear. “Thank you for waiting.”

“You aren’t leaving again,” Linhardt half-commands, half-sobs. He grabs onto the front of Byleth’s shirt and holds onto him tight, as if somehow that could stop the war around them from waging on. “Stay with me. Okay? Say it, please?”

“I’m staying,” Byleth assures, letting Linhardt bury his face in Byleth’s shoulder. He presses a kiss to the crown of Linhardt’s head, running bare fingers down long hair. “I promise.”

Because that’s what promises are for: to be strong, to be protectors. To be something to live for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i edited this while eating cheetos and drinking soju (not the best combination, would not recommend) and then got explosive diarrhea immediately afterwards so forgive me if you spotted any typos LOL  
> anyway i hope the past 21 chapters were a decent build-up for this confession!!! i've had the trio of "you really are a strange one/is it so strange?" lines in my head since i started this fic way back in october 2019, so i pray they had the amount of reader impact i was aiming for
> 
> next chapter: the boss battle


	23. great tree moon (2) — “here’s something to believe in.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s cloudy when they arrive in Fhirdiad.
> 
> Byleth has only been here a scant few times before, and he had been too young to remember anything apart from the cold and how much he had wanted to leave. Father had chastised him for his endless complaints, but he had lent Byleth his oversized fur coat anyway.
> 
> Looking at the city capital now, Byleth can’t help but think that nothing has changed. It’s still cold, he still wants to leave, and he still wishes Father’s fur coat could fix everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[this is your racing heart — can you feel it?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnSc0bczg0) _   
>  _[pumps through your veins — can you feel it?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnSc0bczg0) _
> 
> i told myself i wouldn't make this a 12am update, but i got so excited i just said fuck it. anyway, happy 12am! this chapter is a beast so get comfortable and grab some snacks if you like, unless you've already brushed your teeth like me :/

It’s cloudy when they arrive in Fhirdiad.

Byleth has only been here a scant few times before, and he had been too young to remember anything apart from the cold and how much he had wanted to leave. Father had chastised him for his endless complaints, but he had lent Byleth his oversized fur coat anyway.

Looking at the city capital now, Byleth can’t help but think that nothing has changed. It’s still cold, he still wants to leave, and he still wishes Father’s fur coat could fix everything.

“Throw down your weapons and surrender!” Edelgard shouts. Her voice, amplified by some cleverly modified wind magic, resounds throughout the city. “Unlike you, I have no desire to unleash wicked atrocities upon this world!”

No response. Hubert shakes his head. “Their silence speaks volumes. Shall we commence our attack?”

“Just a moment,” Edelgard says, folding her arms and tapping her heel restlessly against the ground. Beside her, Father absently sharpens his lance against some whetstone, his mind almost certainly elsewhere. “There are still residents in the city. Why didn’t the Church let them evacuate before we arrived?”

“They’re planning something,” Father suddenly speaks up. His voice is flat, toneless, and it catches Edelgard’s attention faster than anything else. “Don’t know what, but it can’t be good. Not like we can do anything about it.”

Edelgard frowns and rests a hand on Father’s arm. “Professor… are you alright? If you… perhaps want to sit out of this battle—”

Father sighs. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t sit battles out. Even if I’m hesitant to fight Rhea now…” He shakes Edelgard’s hand away, only to ruffle her head instead. “I’ll be fine, kid.”

“If you’re sure,” Edelgard says, but Byleth can see her usually stern features soften and her tense shoulders relax just slightly. Everyone treats her like the emperor she is, he realizes, but only Father must treat her like she’s still barely out of her younger years. If it were anyone else, Byleth’s certain Edelgard would have set Aymr on them already, but… this is Father, he supposes. And Father must feel like a father to the rest of the Strike Force, too.

Does that make Edelgard his sister? Byleth’s not quite sure how he feels about that. If he absolutely has to have a sister, he would rather it be Dorothea instead. She already acts the part, after all. Edelgard just sort of… makes Byleth want to give her sweets.

He’s shaken out of his thoughts by a brief touch at his fingers—when he looks beside him, he has to tip his chin just slightly upward. “Hello,” Byleth greets, unable to resist the smile.

“Hello,” Linhardt returns, rolling his eyes in amusement. “We saw each other, what, ten minutes ago. Did you miss me already?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Linhardt blinks bemusedly, then discreetly turns away to hide his face. “Okay. Well, um…”

“Why?” Byleth shifts closer, joining their hands together and squeezing tight. _Fondness… worry… a sting of pain._ “Didn’t you miss me? I’m a little hurt.”

“I don’t like whoever taught you how to tease.”

Behind them, Byleth can see Jeritza and Lysithea exchange matching disgusted looks. If Sothis were here, Byleth thinks she’d be the third member of their party. Ah, well. “You’re staying at the back lines, aren’t you? Your arm still doesn’t feel that great.”

“Did you feel that just from a sneaky Heal spell?” Linhardt huffs. “But, yes. I am. So you better not give me a reason to go out there.” He taps his ring, an ever gorgeous blue, though somehow he makes the action look like a threat.

Byleth smiles again. “I’ll do my best.”

It feels strange to feel so… _optimistic_ about a battle, for once. Byleth can’t help it, though—before seeing Linhardt again, looking at Fhirdiad had made him want to drown in the dread he could feel waiting to swallow him up. Now, he just wants to get this war over and done with so he can do whatever he likes with Linhardt. First, return to the monastery… second, have some tea… third, well, he hasn’t thought that far yet. But there’ll be plenty of time for that, and the promise of a future is almost enough to drive the dread away.

He looks back at where Edelgard is, and she gives the both of them a suspicious look. Then she just sighs and shakes her head, as if saying, _whatever motivates you to stay alive._

Then—Byleth jerks his head up. In the air, just barely… is it just him?

No, he isn’t imagining it—he knows the smell of smoke, of something burning, as well as he knows the fires around their mercenary camp.

“Your Majesty!” an Imperial soldier calls, running over from where his post must have been. “There’s smoke coming from every corner of the capital! It seems they’ve set fire to the city!”

“What?” Edelgard spits out a litany of curses under her breath, then straightens and casts her fiery glare around their army. “Fine—if Rhea wants to play this game… we must commence our attack at once, before the city burns down on us. If you find yourself in danger, escape to the healers. Survive. Prevail. I will not have any of you dying on my hands.” She swallows, her fist clenching around Aymr’s handle. “Not again.”

Byleth casts a glance at the rest of the soldiers gathered around them—he sees Hubert, a rotting black tome strapped to his arm. Ferdinand, stroking the mane of his horse as he clambers up on it. Bernadetta and Ashe, helping each other pass around arrows and bows. Leonie helping Lysithea up on her mount. Caspar offering Dorothea one of the last few magic-reinforced swords in their convoy. Jeritza handing an intricate-looking necklace over to Mercedes and sighing when she shakes her head.

Beside Manuela, Linhardt counts medical supplies under his breath, and Byleth can’t help but follow the shapes his lips forms as he mouths the numbers to himself. When he looks up and meets Byleth’s eyes, he offers a nod and a small smile that feels like a promise of its own.

Whatever optimism Byleth had felt earlier sinks down under the pressure of that same dread. If they are to fight Rhea again… if they are to go against the Immaculate One once more…

Will he able to protect the promise they had both placed so much trust in?

Father steps forward to place a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder and nods at their army. “Let’s win this,” Father says. “Together.”

“Imperial army! Black Eagle Strike Force!” Edelgard shouts, raising her axe. “Move out!”

As if in response, a roar in the distance shakes the very ground they stand on. Byleth closes his eyes, focuses on the pulse of the Creator Sword in his hands, and heads into the burning city.

The one thing Byleth can say is that it certainly isn’t cold in Fhirdiad anymore.

He ducks behind a half-collapsed building before the magic-based golem can catch sight of him—and sighs internally when he hears the now-familiar whirring of its machinery anyway. Byleth, already used to its semi-predictable movements, dives out of the way of its lance and flees further into the narrow alleyways.

The golems not directly guarding Rhea didn’t attack unless provoked—something to do with their making and structure, or whatever Hubert said—so Byleth has been trying to avoid them as much as possible by constantly taking the long way around. You know, like a true fighter. But the entire city being on fire makes it hard to navigate without burning himself, and half of Byleth’s well-worn coat has already been scorched off by now.

When the golem’s noises fade in the distance, replaced only by the constant crackling of the fires, Byleth stops to lean against a wall and look down at his coat. Burnt beyond hope… he sighs. It had lived a good life, he supposes.

But… he looks up at the sky, now darkened by the smoke clouds and tinted red-orange by the flames. Despite being slow enough to easily outrun, the golems and their lances have a wide range Byleth can’t hope to keep avoiding. Every time Rhea—the Immaculate One—roars, they somehow get stronger and even harder to take down, too. They can’t let this go on forever. Either they defeat the golems now, and risk getting crushed to death or stabbed clean through…

Or… Byleth swallows. Or they can cut the head off the snake, and charge straight for Rhea.

 _But it’s impossible,_ he tries and fails not to think. The last time they had fought the Immaculate One, they had almost been decimated, Garreg Mach fell into ruin, and Byleth disappeared for five years—and she hadn’t even been at her _full power_ then. Now Byleth has zero doubt that Rhea is going all-out, with the immense magical power he can feel emanating from her all the way from the other end of the city.

And yet… as long as they can bypass the golems’ field of detection… as long as they play their cards safe… as long as Byleth keeps himself far away from any steep cliffs…

There it is again—that thrum in his veins, that ringing in his ears. The sweat that gathers across his brow and behind his neck is not from the heat of the fire but from the cold of the fear beginning to gather inside him, wrapping tight around his chest like a boa constrictor. Byleth hates it, how weak fear makes him—he almost wishes he could go back to five years ago, when he had feared nothing, felt nothing, killed everything without hesitation.

 _Deep breaths…_ Byleth coughs out a lungful of smoke, counts the pulses of the Creator Sword in his grip. Surely, if he’s careful… surely, if he’s with others to help him instead of just him alone like last time…

“Byleth! Hey, kid—you okay?”

Byleth looks up, just in time to meet Father’s eyes. He and his horse canter by; barely hanging on behind him is Edelgard, Aymr slung across her back. “You’re here?” Byleth says, not sure why the words come out as a question.

Father shrugs, flicking what looks like scrap metal off the head of his lance. “Too narrow for the golems to follow us in. And you?”

“Oh. The same.” Byleth looks at them again—at the way Father holds himself atop his mount, at the glare Edelgard directs to the sky when the Immaculate One roars once more—and realizes, _oh. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?_ “Can we go ahead and take on Rhea ourselves?”

“ _What?_ ” Father sputters, at the same time Edelgard nods grimly. Father whirls around to stare at her incredulously. “Not you, too!”

“It makes sense,” Edelgard says, folding her arms over her chest. Her cape flutters dramatically behind her, somehow not on fire. “The golems are already difficult to defeat by themselves, but strengthened by the Immaculate One, they become downright invincible. The only logical course of action is to head straight for Rhea herself.” She tilts her head in Byleth’s direction. “I assume you were thinking the same?”

At Byleth’s nod, Father sighs and massages his temple. “Okay, fine, yeah, I expected this. Of course it’d be the two of you who want to rush a damn dragon head-on… You got any _plans_ first, though?”

Edelgard and Byleth exchange a look. “We have… an idea of one,” Edelgard slowly says.

“Go on.”

“We go straight to her without endangering anyone else and then defeat her,” Byleth tells him, feeling quite proud about how very concise and succinct his answer is.

Father reaches over to smack his head. “That is _not_ a plan. That isn’t even an idea of one! You’re just charging in with nothing but blind hope and some fancy-looking weapons, aren’t you?”

 _What’s so wrong about that,_ Byleth wants to ask, but—he’d be an idiot to say something like that, when he’s no stranger to the worry written all over Father’s face. In truth, he knows how foolhardy it is, to try to fight someone like the Immaculate One with the bare bones of a plan, but—

Another roar echoes throughout the city, reverberating off the buildings and ringing in Byleth’s ears. In the distance, Byleth can hear the clanking and whirring of the golems’ machinery again, adjusting to the new magical power.

“We don’t have time,” Edelgard says, and the way she speaks makes it sound as if she’s talking about more than just this fight alone. There’s a hardened look in her eyes, the pale lavender shade weathered by blood and battle, and Byleth remembers what she had told him all those years ago— _every morning I open my eyes not knowing if it will happen again._ “And I do not want to put the rest of our friends in more danger than they are already in,” she murmurs, grip tightening on her axe.

Byleth sighs. How very Edelgard. “So? What are we waiting for?”

Edelgard glares at him. “You have to promise me you’ll be careful, Byleth. You’re the only one who can use faith magic among the three of us, but you can’t heal yourself if—”

“Hold on.” Father places a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder again, although this time it’s to rein her in before she goes on another one of her infamous lectures. “When did I agree to letting you two run off on your own? Did you learn _nothing_ from the last two times we fought Rhea? Neither ended all that well, if you don’t remember.” He shoots a pointed look towards Byleth, as if asking how on Earth he can forget falling off a cliff and temporarily dying.

“It’ll be fine if you’re with us, right?” Byleth returns. It’s barely a question as much as it is a confirmation, because Father is already shifting his hold on his lance to the grip he uses when ready to go all-out on the offensive.

It takes Father a long, tired second, but finally he sighs and grabs hold of his horse’s reins again. “Keep up, or you’ll get left behind.”

Unfortunately, when they _do_ get there, it quickly becomes apparent that they really, _really_ should have thought of a better plan. Or a plan at all, really, because this is _not_ working out.

Aside from how it had taken them what felt like _ages_ to bypass all the golems and get to where Rhea is, it’s not enough that she has to blast them on sight—she has to be flanked by Cyril, too, who swoops through the air on his wyvern and nearly chops Father’s head off at least five times within as many minutes. Catherine, for some reason, is nowhere to be found—Byleth dearly hopes it stays that way.

“This is ridiculous,” Father groans, urging his horse out of the way of another fire breath. The house it lands on explodes into cinders—Byleth’s just glad they had managed to help the family living there out beforehand. “We’re just running circles around her— _literally,_ and not in a good way. Any suggestions now, kid?”

“None,” Byleth meekly replies. He ducks out of the way as soon as he hears the heavy beat of wings, and narrowly avoids the blade of Cyril’s axe. “But—maybe take care of him first?”

Father blanches, and Byleth tries not to do the same. He knows neither of them want to hurt Cyril, much less kill him—even if he’s five years older now and a seasoned soldier, all Byleth really remembers about him is the child who fed the monastery cats and dogs with him whenever they happened to be assigned to the same chores. By the way Edelgard has been avoiding severely injuring him too, Byleth can guess she feels the same.

“If you see the chance,” Father finally says, readying his lance again as Cyril turns around to dive down at them once more. “I trust you, alright? Whatever you decide.”

There’s more pressure in those words than Byleth had expected. He swallows, gripping the Creator Sword tighter, ignoring how its grooves dig further in the calluses on his palms—why does it suddenly feel so heavy once more? Why does moving take so much effort?

Father times his attack perfectly, cutting the underside of Cyril’s wyvern’s belly a split second after he dodges its snapping jaws and Cyril’s axe—when his wyvern falters and his grip on his weapon loosens, Byleth pushes himself forward. Yet using the Creator Sword makes his chest uncomfortably tight—maybe, just maybe—

At the last second he retracts his blade and throws out his other arm instead, and calls on a bolt of thunder. Cyril’s eyes widen and he directs his wyvern higher up to dodge—but the electricity zips after him at Byleth’s command, and Byleth almost doesn’t realize he’s falling until he smells, amidst all the fire and smoke, burning human flesh.

_No—_

“No!” Byleth shouts, the word ripping its way out of his throat—before he can take off at a run towards Cyril, a pair of arms have wrapped around his torso, holding him back as Cyril and his mount plummet to the ground in a scorched tangle of man and wyvern. _No,_ Byleth wants to shout again, except his throat closes up and he can only gape uselessly as what little he can see of Cyril crashes onto the streets.

His hands had used to hurt after every spell he cast. Over time, his magic began to feel more and more like a simple extension of himself, as much his weapon as the Creator Sword is. But now—but now—

“Byleth,” Father’s saying, tugging him backward, his heels skidding across the pavement, “hey, kid, come on— _move—_ ”

Now his hands are singed again, and Byleth thinks they might as well be soaked in blood.

“ _Byleth!_ ” Father shouts, just as Byleth comes to and hears Rhea’s roar bounce off the few still-standing buildings around them. He tears his gaze away from the charred corpses ahead of him and follows Father into an alleyway right before Rhea blasts another beam of energy at where they had been standing.

“Sorry,” Byleth breathes, only half-aware of what he’s even saying, “sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t… I didn’t… I don’t know, I…”

Why had he killed him? He had only meant to incapacitate the wyvern, or to at least blast Cyril’s weapon out of his grip, but—an accident, it had been an accident, because there are no other factors he can think of that could have affected that, but Byleth had still _killed_ without even _meaning to—_

Is that it? Is that all he’s good for—to kill and kill and kill until there is nothing left? Even when he tries not to, even when it’s the _last thing_ he wants to do, is killing what he was brought to the world for?

“No,” Father says, so firmly that it drags Byleth back to reality and out of his head, and it takes him a second to realize he must have spoken aloud. “You might have killed, Byleth, but you’re no killer, you hear me? You told me yourself, that you don’t like killing. That’s what matters most. That was an accident, and it’s a fucking shame and there’s no turning back, but that’s what happened, alright? We screw up and we have to move on and live with our mistakes like we always have, alright?”

“Father—”

“You’re no killer,” he repeats, like Byleth hadn’t heard him the first time, or maybe just because he needs Byleth to hear it a second time. Then, in a soft, low voice Byleth hasn’t heard Father use in a long, long while since the start of the war, “You’re you. You’re… Byleth. You’re whatever you decide to be.”

_Whatever I… decide…_

The street just beside them explodes in a shower of debris, and Father curses as he pulls Byleth onto his horse, and they squeeze through the narrow alley until they come out the other end onto a wider street. “We need to get back for Edelgard,” Father says, more to himself than to Byleth. “She’s a close-combat attacker—never built up much resistance against magic, too, ugh, but with Rhea blasting everything to bits…”

Byleth stares at Father’s back, his eyes half-following the fold of fabric. _Whatever I decide… whatever I decide…_

The Creator Sword is in his one hand, but the other is free. He reaches into the inside of his coat pocket and retrieves a curved, glimmering black blade.

The giant demonic beast from the battle at Tailtean Plains had been Dedue, someone had told him afterwards. He’d been the one to distribute Crest Stones among the Kingdom soldiers, then eventually turned into one himself—all for the sake of winning the war, which they hadn’t even been able to do. But…

Byleth stares down at Athame, remembers how it had cut into him all those years ago.

When Edelgard had given it to him… what had she said again? _Own it. Overcome it. How can you continue to improve if you refuse to face what once defeated you? It is our weaknesses that push us to grow strong._

“You’re looking at that thing like you have a plan,” Father interjects, expression both curious and wary.

“Maybe I do.”

Father sighs. “Knowing you, this is going to end up with a long trip to the infirmary. But as long as this doesn’t end with us getting turned into Rhea’s dinner… I said it before but I’ll say it again. I trust you, kid. Whatever you decide.”

 _Whatever I decide,_ Byleth tells himself, and clutches the dagger’s hilt tight enough to carve its grooves into his palm.

Father slowly guides them back towards Rhea—Byleth had hoped she would have calmed down somewhat, or at least lowered her guard after seeing them run away, but she only seems to have grown more agitated. The question as to why is answered fairly quickly when he spots Edelgard lowering her shield (which coincidentally happens to be almost twice her weight) from her face and shouting, “You don’t value human life at all! How can you call yourself the Archbishop of Fódlan?”

“Oh, no,” Father groans. “She should _not_ be doing that. Edelgard! Quit it, right now!”

But his words are lost to the deafening shriek Rhea lets out at Edelgard’s taunt. “Fools who do not accept their own sins are undeserving of salvation,” she hisses. Smaller pieces of debris skitter across the ground to hit Edelgard’s boots and the hooves of Father’s horse. “You humans are the ones who betray! You betrayed me, and you betrayed my mother!”

Edelgard’s face twists into disdain. “I did not betray you nor her. I never believed in you from the beginning.” And, without letting the argument drag on any longer, she raises Aymr over her head and charges straight towards the Immaculate One with a battle cry.

“Oh, _no,_ ” Father says, this time with a bit more panic than earlier. Byleth hops off the horse just as he sets into a gallop after Edelgard. “You do your thing, kid! Whatever it is!” he shouts, swerving sharply to dodge a rogue fireball. Whatever else he may have said is drowned out by the roar Rhea lets out when her slitted eyes land on Father.

“ _You!_ ” she bellows, her voice surely carrying halfway across the city. “Jeralt, how could you do this to me? After everything we went through… _after everything I did for you!_ ”

Byleth hurries forward, just in time to catch Father’s withering reply. “Been five years, Rhea. Thought you would’ve gotten over me by now.” He raises his lance in response to Rhea’s furious scream, and shouts, “Thanks for the Crest I never asked for, by the damn way!”

A wayward fire blast explodes mere steps away from where Byleth is standing, and he stumbles away to lean back against a half-crumbled building. _Deep breaths, deep breaths…_ It stinks of smoke, but he hardly has a choice in the matter. Father and Edelgard can keep Rhea busy and distracted, he knows, but certainly not for long—and unless they manage to find an opening, simply wearing away at the hide of the Immaculate One doesn’t sound like an effective strategy. At most, they might exhaust her magic long enough for Byleth to get his opportunity.

But—his hand trembles as he lifts up Athame to the firelight, watching the reflection of flames dance across its surface. Can he really do this again? Does he really _want_ to do this again?

Silly questions. Of course he doesn’t. Of course he can.

It’s just as he’s lowering his hand when he spots something decidedly not fire blinking red on his finger—and Byleth almost falls forward when he realizes it’s his _ring,_ the inset gem on it flickering between red and green as if unsure before finally deciding on the former.

 _No, no—_ he can’t have this, not now, not when they’re so _close!_

Byleth runs out from behind the building, whipping his head this way and that as if he’d actually find Linhardt standing here. Rhea is but an afterthought in his head now, despite the sounds of battle raging on behind him—what had happened? Did the Knights of Seiros launch a surprise attack on their backlines, where half the healers are stationed? Linhardt’s not defenseless, so logically Byleth shouldn’t really worry if he’s being attacked, because he _knows_ Linhardt can defend himself, but—

But if that were the case, then the gem wouldn’t turn red, would it? It only worked in times of real, actual, _life-threatening_ danger, which means—which means—Byleth wants to tear at his hair in frustration. How is he supposed to get back to where he is _now?_ By doing that, he leaves Father and Edelgard at the mercy of Rhea, and he risks leaving them to _die—_

“Byleth!”

Byleth almost collapses from relief. “Linhardt,” he manages, feeling air rush back into his lungs at the sight of Linhardt, evidently having been running, stopping to lean against a chunk of what was once part of the street and catch his breath. Then the relief morphs into cold fear when he realizes exactly _where_ Linhardt is. “What are you doing? How did you even get here? You’ll get hurt, Rhea’s right there—”

“Asked… Lysithea… to use Warp…” Linhardt takes a deep breath, then scowls and lifts his arm up to reveal the matching blinking-red gem on his finger. “Anyway, you had best explain _this,_ because if this were a regular fight then it wouldn’t have given me cause for worry.” But his irritation turns into confusion when he gives Byleth a once-over, and he takes several steps nearer to cast a weak Heal spell that fizzles out without a target. “You’re… hardly hurt. For once.”

Byleth shakes his head. “Exactly. I don’t know why it would have warned you.” A glance down at his own ring reveals that it’s still decidedly red, however—then again, he supposes Linhardt is in danger simply by virtue of being here, right where Rhea could blast them both to death. But if Linhardt’s hadn’t turned red until seconds ago, then what danger could it have detected?

He can’t think of a plausible explanation, unless… it had somehow picked up on what Byleth plans to do.

Thankfully, Linhardt doesn’t seem as concerned anymore—he directs his gaze to Rhea instead, where Byleth can see Father and Edelgard narrowly dodging another stream of Bolganone-level fire. “They can’t possibly win by themselves,” he mutters, lips pursing into a worried frown. “Normal weapons will hardly do much damage to the likes of the Archbishop. Even Aymr alone isn’t enough…”

“That’s fine,” Byleth says. “I have a plan.”

Linhardt turns a suspicious gaze on him. “Do you, now? This better not end up with you getting hurt _again._ ”

Byleth shrugs vaguely. Before Linhardt can protest, Byleth moves his wrist so that Linhardt’s attention is drawn to Athame, and then he says, “I don’t know if this will work. But it’s the best idea I have at the moment, and… and as long as it at least buys enough time until everyone else can get here, and then take down Rhea by outnumbering her…”

“What are you saying?” Linhardt asks, grabbing his wrist. It takes Byleth a second to realize his hand is shaking, despite how tight his grip is. “What are you talking about? Byleth, just wait. We can think of—”

“Sorry,” Byleth says; and then, without thinking, he cups Linhardt’s face in his free hand and draws him in for a kiss, one Linhardt doesn’t have time to reciprocate but one Byleth puts his everything into, knowing too well he may never do this again. When he pulls away, Byleth adds, “I love you,” and then he takes off at a run towards Rhea because he doesn’t want Linhardt to see him cry.

He feels—strange. He should be more scared, more frightened than he is now, but though there’s a familiar tingle of fear at the back of his neck and down his spine, it’s overshadowed by an emotion Byleth can only really classify as conviction.

Emotions—there are still so many left to discover, so many left to feel. Will Byleth ever get to discover more, now?

“Rhea!” he shouts, loud enough that he’s sure he can be heard over the din of battle—Edelgard gawks at him, and Father’s horse almost stumbles from surprise. The Immaculate One turns her fiery gaze down at him, and Byleth sees the exact moment those eyes fill with pure hatred. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“You… _Youuu,_ ” she growls, the animalistic noise coming from deep in her throat. “Give her back… _Give back my mother! Grraaaughh!_ ”

Byleth feels an uncharacteristic sneer come on. There are words he wants to say, right now, but he thinks Edelgard must have taunted her enough. His job now is to do what he knows he can and what he knows he has to. He leaps out of the way of a beam of energy, only idly noting how it completely obliterates the part of the street beneath him, and motions for Father and Edelgard to clear out. They obey, reluctantly—from the corner of his eye, Byleth can see Father grabbing onto Linhardt, whose legs are still moving uselessly in his direction, eyes wide with so many emotions Byleth could take the rest of the day to pick them all out.

“I’m sorry,” he mouths again, though he doubts Linhardt catches it. Seeing him now, he wishes, if only for a moment, that he had kissed him harder and deeper and longer—but Byleth turns away, because if there’s one thing he understands from his previous mercenary life, it’s that emotions like those only ever get in the way.

Above him, Rhea looms, menacing, threatening, readying another beam of energy between her jaws. Byleth casts a glance around the city, around Fhirdiad on fire, around the bodies of innocent citizens around them. She had done this. And because Byleth hadn’t defeated her before… _he_ had done this, too.

Deep breaths. In and out. In and out. _Own it. Overcome it._

There is nothing to be afraid of here except himself.

Byleth sucks in a mouthful of oxygen, one he lets out in a scream when he plunges Athame into his chest.

The overload of dark magic is _immediate._ The miasma, ever intangible and elusive, filling up his lungs—the swarm of insects wriggling and worming their way through his veins—the screeching of the banshee, drowning out every other sound—and that feeling of complete _death,_ like the spell Solon had used on them before, as indescribable as it is deadly, as powerful as it is painful. There are other spells in him mixing and churning like a melting pot of magic—something that feels like the temptation of moonlight, another that makes the ground quake beneath him—but if he can just gather himself long enough…

Byleth digs Athame further inside himself, uncaring if it punctures a lung or pierces his heart, as long as it gets the job done— _more,_ he commands, feeling the magic roar in response. _More, I want more, give me more—_

“How—How dare you?” he vaguely hears someone—Rhea—ask over the banshee’s perpetual screaming. “You would sink so far as to use the same tactics as the Agarthans? The same low-lives who killed my mother and harvested her body for power!?”

He feels it more than he sees it, the searing heat of the Immaculate One’s fire racing his way—but with everything so numb, Byleth can barely bring himself to care. Without bothering to open his squeezed-shut eyes, he holds out a hand—no, a claw?—and orders, _Protect me._

Mire drips down his nails. The heat is gone before he knows what even happened, replaced by a freezing cold that sends chills running up and down his body.

“You…” Rhea’s voice sounds odd. Byleth can’t quite place it. He can’t quite think at all, really—everything feels like a buzz in his ears. “What have you done?”

He can’t think. What was he supposed to do, again…? All he can register right now is the power surging through him, pouring out of his skin. When he opens his eyes, everything is so _clear—_ he can see straight into the blue of the fires around him, can trace the outline of every plume of smoke, can note down the tiniest grain of debris scattered around him. When he looks up and meets the Immaculate One’s eyes, he finds himself listing down every single shade of red her eyes are.

 _It hurts,_ a part of him whimpers. _It hurts._

 _No, no,_ the magic trills, _it’s_ exhilarating.

“ _No!_ ” someone shouts. Byleth turns around, slow and languid—it feels like he has all the time and power in the world, after all. Behind him stand… three different people. Urgh, who _were_ they again? Names are so troublesome when there are far more important things to care about, like how easy dark magic comes now—all Byleth has to do is exhale, and miasma tickles his nostrils on the way out. “Byleth, why—not _this!_ Anything but this!”

 _Vermin, the lot of them,_ a small, sweet little voice whispers in his ear. _Kronya,_ Byleth’s mind automatically supplies. But he thought he had killed her… does a part of her still live on in the magic of her dagger? _Go ahead and kill them, sweetling. Test out your power._

Power, power, _power,_ so much of it that Byleth thinks he could get drunk on strength. He flicks his wrist, watches the familiar shadows of a banshee’s voice circle his fingers. Fingers? No, they’re _claws,_ ones that can easily rip and tear fragile human flesh to shreds. Should he use his magic, or his new body? Byleth can’t decide. All he knows is that he needs to do something, before he gets too restless and demolishes the city.

The city… the city… there’s something important about that. Why is he in a city, again?

“Byleth!” another one shouts. Their voices are beginning to grate on his ears. “Remember yourself! Remember—Remember what you’re doing! Who you’re doing this for!”

_Who…?_

That voice… if Byleth digs into his fog of memories… what had that voice told him, before? _Own it, overcome it…_

_Own it… own it…_

“So your _grand plan_ was to turn one of your own against you,” the dragon behind him sneers. “How very fitting of an end! Traitors deserve to be betrayed, after all. Well, Byleth? Or should I even call you that anymore, when you’re little more than a skeleton… Won’t you end those worthless human lives for me?”

Byleth feels his mouth curl into a snarl. He doesn’t do things for _anyone._ Much less some dragon with a voice that makes his magic want to run wild.

_Own it._

Of course. Of course he owns it. This power is his, and his alone. Now he remembers—when he had first transformed, when he hadn’t been able to control himself just yet, everyone had told him that this wasn’t him, that he shouldn’t be afraid, of both his magic and himself. But the truth is that… this _is_ him, and he can’t separate it from himself.

He stretches his arm out. Claws, fingers, whatever—what matters is that this body is his, and the magic that gathers is his, and the hatred burning in his chest at the sight of the Immaculate One before him is definitely, certainly his.

There is nothing more he wants to do than to never kill again. But, rather than simply _overcoming_ them, Byleth has to first accept his shadows, the darkness, the bloodiness of his being, to fully accept _himself._

When he releases the spell, not even quite sure of what it is specifically, Rhea looks too shocked to dodge—it collides against her neck, and a revolting mass of ghostly insects swarm her body, slipping between the pure white scales and sending dark veins pulsing through her body. Rhea roars in what sounds like both pain and fury, taking to the air and diving towards Byleth—he meets her head-on, ignoring how jagged rocks pierce his back and focusing on enveloping himself in dark aura instead. The aura shimmers, then explodes outwards in a shell of dark spikes—Rhea growls and flies back up, the beat of her wings sending debris flying around them.

“Byleth—” It’s Linhardt, somehow having broken free of Father’s grip and scrambling over to him. Byleth doesn’t know what to say, or do, or… or anything, because for some reason all he can really think about is just how beautiful Linhardt’s eyes are, and why had he never appreciated them so much before? “Let me help you,” he whispers, then holds his arms out, palms above his chest.

Byleth tenses for the sharp burn from faith magic again, a pain from last time he isn’t going to readily forget—but instead it’s another surge of power, one that can make him ignore the wounds already scattered throughout his body for the time being. He opens his mouth to speak—what will he even say, _thank you?_ —but Linhardt is already beginning to look pale and wobble on his feet.

“Linhardt,” Byleth tries to say—only his voice comes out sounding remarkably similar to the shriek of a banshee, and the word is lost in the amalgamation of screams trapped on his tongue. _The Nosferatu spell… It will always retain some darkness within it._

Edelgard rushes over to steady Linhardt against her shoulder, and shoots Byleth a look that seems… proud, maybe. It’s rare for Byleth to be a recipient of such an emotion. Before she can speak, though, her gaze flicks upwards, and Byleth has to call on the shield of spikes before Rhea can set them all on fire like the rest of the city. “Go,” Byleth tries to say once more—but the same thing happens, his voice gurgling incoherently.

She can probably somehow tell what he meant to say, because she shakes her head at the same time Father comes galloping over on his horse. “This is crazy,” Father shouts up at him. (Oh, this is one of the few times Byleth’s ever gotten to look down at Father before.) “This is crazy and I’m not forgiving you for this, you hear me!?”

Byleth attempts a nod. Miasma spews out of his mouth instead, but neither Father nor Edelgard seem to care—they hurry out of the way as Rhea descends closer, swiping at Byleth with her own claws. Byleth flings spell after spell, uncaring of what they are as long as they _do something—_ and though Rhea flinches with every hit, nothing seems to genuinely _damage_ her to give Byleth the upper hand. _Attack,_ he commands, desperately, _attack, attack, kill—_

Mire bursts forth from his claws, hissing towards Rhea like an army of snakes. They look flimsy in comparison to just about every other spell Byleth’s previously cast, but he _knows_ mire, has trained with it for so long that by this point it’s his best weapon beside the Creator Sword. _Dissolve,_ he orders, and the mire vanishes into Rhea’s scales. Rhea snarls, clearly unaffected, and gathers up the strength for another blast of fire—

 _Eat,_ Byleth commands.

Rhea rears back with a tortured shriek, thick green blood trickling down her maw—if Byleth focuses, he can physically _feel_ the mire hungrily eating away at her, voracious predators feasting on bone and muscle and insides alike. She soars back up into the smoke-choked sky, wings beating hard enough to send Byleth stumbling back, and coughs up globs of mire that splatter wetly onto the streets, dissolving the ground as easily as it had with the training dummies in the monastery so long ago.

There’s still mire inside her, but not enough that it could lead to death, even a slow one. Byleth casts around for more mire, feeling the blood seeping from his chest morph into the thick sludge mid-bleed—

He’s too focused on his magic to get out of the way in time, and the fire engulfs him without pause. Byleth chokes on his scream, scrabbling to get away from the heat—it burns, it _burns,_ searing his body and making the wound in his chest hurt more and more and more until he wants to curl up uselessly and just wait for the fire to take him. _Save me,_ he orders, weakly, but all his magic can do is stir helplessly against the heat that swallows it up.

What now? What now? Byleth stretches his arms out, throws all his might into summoning just one drop of mire, just one thing to control—and he gasps as the air is ripped out of his body, more miasma spilling out of his mouth (and nose and ears and _eyes)_ to fly up into Rhea’s own nose. She screeches, clawing away at herself, but Byleth can see the darkening underside of her belly where he guesses her lungs must be somewhere. Her flight grows erratic, long enough that Byleth can take a deep breath, ignore the flames still licking persistently at his body…

It burns, it _burns…_ He can’t even try to control it, as reason magic, logical and rigid by nature, is much harder to wrestle control of, compared to the fluid loyalty of dark magic, which follows whichever mage is strong enough to command it. But… despite his injuries, Byleth can still feel the power flowing through his body—surely, if he tries hard enough—

He _grabs_ control of the fire encircling him, and _tears_ it off his person—or at least he tries to, because the fire snaps back at him, only scorching deeper into his bones. Byleth screams, though it comes out as a monstrous roar that rivals Rhea’s, and reaches blindly out not with his arms but with the mire he can feel ready and waiting around him. Finally, _thankfully,_ it responds to his pain, rising into the air to strike at the Immaculate One, apparently recovered from his previous attack. Byleth can’t see what happens—the flames cloud his vision, and he tries not to focus on how his eyes feel ready to melt out of their sockets—but he can guess the magic will keep Rhea at bay for another few seconds. A minute, if he’s lucky.

Byleth drags himself further away, coughing out more mire that slithers over towards Rhea as soon as they leave his mouth. _It hurts,_ he thinks, and the dark magic inside him crows in unison. _It hurts… It hurts…_ Athame is still firmly buried in his chest, and the longer it stays there the more blood he loses. Is he going to die? After everything, will it just end like this?

 _Death._ Even the dark magic shudders at the concept. Perhaps they’re simply reluctant to be without a vessel so soon after acquiring one, but the point stands. Death… death…

It’s been years, but somehow Byleth still remembers how it felt when he had cast that spell in his dreams, the nights following Remire Village. The pain, the darkness, the shadows… The fear in Linhardt’s eyes, most of all. _You promised,_ most of all.

Something refreshingly cool touches his face, and Byleth blinks, only half-aware of how his right eyeball feels like it’s already begun to melt. In front of him is Linhardt, brow furrowed in concentration and his hands pulsing with faith magic. _No,_ Byleth wants to say, but his tongue feels too bloated to move, and all he can really manage is a guttural growl. Yet for some reason the faith magic… _doesn’t_ hurt, and it just feels like how it always does—warm, calming, like hot tea and library books and the sunshine Byleth wants to lie under with Linhardt together.

_Plenty of people seem to think dark and faith magic are two different things, with how often they tend to cancel each other out. But you and I both know they’re only too easy to exchange._

“Lin… _haaardt,_ ” Byleth rumbles, leaning closer to his hand. This is the closest he’s gotten to coherent speech for the past several minutes, and he’s really not surprised that Linhardt’s name is the first thing he says.

“You fool,” Linhardt mutters, stroking his cheek. His hand shifts as if moving over bumps and ridges, and Byleth briefly wonders what his face looks like. “You big, bumbling fool. How could you do this? Didn’t you promise?”

“ _Pro… mise._ ”

“You promised you’d never leave me again,” Linhardt murmurs, though Byleth doesn’t need the reminder. With a sigh, he rests his forehead against Byleth’s and closes his eyes, his hands coming up to rest on the side of his head. “Couldn’t you have thought of another way? One that doesn’t involve this?”

His voice is shaking, and there are tears slipping down his cheeks, and Byleth wants nothing more than to kiss them off. “Sorry,” he says, and when Linhardt presses a finger against where he figures his throat must be, his next words come out sounding almost human again. “Sorry,” Byleth repeats—is his voice trembling? It can’t be, can it? “Sorry… sorry…”

He can’t even explain what he’s apologizing for— _sorry,_ for making Linhardt see him like this again— _sorry,_ for not even being able to defeat Rhea right now— _sorry,_ because he doesn’t know if he can keep his promise still.

 _Sorry,_ most of all, because Byleth is making him cry again.

That familiar roar comes from above them, and Byleth doesn’t think before pushing Linhardt behind a building right as a blast of fire incinerates where he had just been standing. Rhea circles overhead—her veins are pulsing with dark magic, so much that her body has become more black than white, but somehow she’s still firing up another beam of energy in her mouth. Byleth leaps out of the way, hissing when he catches the tail end of the attack. But the fires are gone, and the pain has receded just enough to let him focus on combat again.

“Worthless,” Rhea snarls, touching down on the wrecked street in front of him. “Even with your demonic powers, you still have yet to kill me. In the end, you are nothing but another Agarthan I must destroy!”

She flings an enormous fireball towards him, one Byleth is too slow to dodge—he brings up the shield of dark spikes again, desperately trying to repel the fire, but Rhea is already charging up for another one that Byleth _knows_ will shatter his shield and burn him down to ashes—

“Don’t waste my time!” someone shouts—the fireball explodes into cinders, and Edelgard (when did she _get there)_ slices down the next one that comes as well, Aymr glowing bright red. Her clothes still aren’t anywhere near burnt—are they fireproof or something? “Go on, Rhea! Exhaust yourself more!” Edelgard mocks, holding up her shield to deflect the third ball of fire. “Don’t you see? Even in your true form, _you_ still have yet to kill _us!_ ”

Rhea howls, the sound bouncing off the spike-shield Byleth’s still reluctant to dispel. “ _I should never have let you live!_ ” she shrieks, clawing at Edelgard, who doesn’t get out of the way in time—she buckles under Rhea’s claws, deep marks scored across her shield. “If I had only known from the start that you would do this to me, I would have ripped your flesh to shreds with my bare hands!”

Out of nowhere, Father leaps off his horse mid-gallop and somehow manages to land on Rhea’s back, digging his lance into her hide before he can slide off—Rhea screams, throwing her head back and writhing wildly, giving Edelgard enough time to drag herself away from her wicked claws. “You dare treat me like some common animal!” she bellows.

“I can if you _act like one,_ ” Father bites out, gritting his teeth as he pushes the lance in deeper and deeper into her neck—green blood and black mire alike explode from the wound. He looks up, just long enough to meet Byleth’s eyes and shout, “Now, kid!”

Byleth locks eyes with Edelgard beside him, who nods and readies her axe—then with Linhardt, hidden safely behind the building, who purses his lips and gathers magic at his fingertips.

So this is it, then, Byleth thinks—Rhea’s distracted by both pain and pride, and all four of them are gathered here at last. He digs deep inside himself, and retrieves a magic older than any of them, perhaps even Rhea herself, a magic so old he can only hope it honors his command. A magic that had once been used against him, and a magic all the rest huddle away from in fear and respect.

Dropping her shield, Edelgard grips Aymr tight in both hands. “When humanity stands strong and people reach out for each other… there’s no need for gods.”

Byleth unsheathes the Creator Sword from his side, where it had been tucked into a scabbard made of bones—possibly _his_ bones. He looks at it now, at its twitching blade and its pulsing Crest Stone, and wonders if this is what Sothis would have wanted for him.

“Rhea! Your reign of tyranny is over!”

“ _Silence!_ ” Rhea cries—whatever her next words may have been turn into a garbled scream as the tip of Father’s spearhead protrudes from the other side of her long neck, more of the revolting mix of blood and mire spilling forth.

The Immaculate One _screeches,_ energy gathering between her jaws for another desperate strike—but this one is different, Byleth can tell, by how the usual white glow has been replaced by a pulsing black one instead. She fires quicker than expected, but Edelgard rolls out of the way, much faster now without her shield, and Byleth diverts the path of the dark magic to curve away from him instead.

With another nod at him, Edelgard charges towards Rhea, lifting Aymr over her head—its gold material glimmers brilliantly, firelight reflecting off the Crest Stone in its center—and shouts, “We’re ending this once and for all! Byleth!”

She slices a deep gash down the side of Rhea’s face—black blood splatters all across her, spewing like a fountain from the wound, and she pushes down on her axe as far as it can go despite Rhea’s best efforts to shake her off. The laceration extends all the way down to the underside of Rhea’s jaw, piercing even her tongue, and the following roars turn garbled and sickening—Edelgard lands on the ground with a roll, while Father, finally losing his grip on his lance, floats downward with the help of some sort of magic Linhardt guides.

There’s no time to waste—though her wounds are serious, Rhea could annihilate them all if given time to recover. Byleth looks down at his claws—hands, really—and stretches his arms out.

And, instead of commanding it this time, he whispers, _Please—listen to me._

The magic stirs, restless. All magic, from what Byleth has learned, have a will of their own—faith magic is always kind and gentle and loyal, and impossible to grab control of when already cast. Reason magic is strict and largely inflexible, but can be persuaded with enough effort. And dark magic prioritizes, above all else, _power—_ so Byleth isn’t expecting much by requesting something from it instead of just ordering it to fight. _Requesting_ certainly doesn’t sound very powerful, after all.

But the thing about magic is that it _listens,_ and Byleth sees this when the Death spell in his palms rears up like a snake in the grasslands, cutting through the air to sink its fangs into its prey.

Rhea does not die right away. She lashes out at the magic that strikes her, seemingly ignoring how it seeps into her body to destroy her from the inside out, and lunges for Byleth with single-minded rage so uncharacteristic of the Archbishop Byleth had met in the monastery. But her movements, though frenzied, are sluggish, and all Byleth really has to do is hold out the Creator Sword before him and match his breathing in time with the beat of Sothis’ heart.

“Here’s something to believe in,” he tells her, and digs the blade into her eye.

When the body of the Immaculate One falls into its own flames, all the dark magic that had accumulated inside it spills out from its wounds—miasma dissolves into the air, and mire melts into the cracks on the street. The shadows of the Death spell hover above the bleeding, unmoving corpse for a few seconds, and somehow Byleth feels as if it’s staring at him, waiting for his next action.

 _You did good,_ he tells it. _Thank you._

Another blink, and it disappears into the smoke, leaving nothing but its pungent smell behind.

Edelgard groans and pushes herself up from her knees, steadying her weight on Aymr. “Is… Is it over?”

Father grumbles under his breath as he walks over, grabs the handle of his lance, and rips it out of Rhea’s neck. Blood pools under his feet. “This was my last silver lance,” he sighs.

 _Is it over…?_ Byleth stares ahead of him—it doesn’t _feel_ over, nor does it feel real. Had they really defeated Rhea already? Hadn’t it gone too fast? With every second that passes, Byleth’s starting to think he somehow needs to reach for a Divine Pulse and travel back just to prolong their victory, because none of it seems at all real. Where are the rest of the Black Eagle Strike Force? He wants to go to each one of them and ask them if they’ve really won. _Can_ he do that? He can turn around and ask Linhardt to Warp him to wherever they all are, right?

Byleth begins to turn around, and instantly regrets it when he simply plummets to the ground like a falling building. _Oh,_ he thinks, faintly, _everything… hurts._

The pain of harnessing so much magic— _too_ much magic—had been repressed earlier, driven back by the adrenaline of the fight, but now it comes back at full force and with a vengeance. Byleth can barely even _breathe_ now, when all he can smell is smoke and poison and all he can taste is blood and grime. Is that his saliva, turning into mire? Every drop of bodily fluid, adding to the cesspool of mud and muck inside him like canals of sewage? Is he turning into dark magic himself?

“Byleth!” Edelgard calls, followed by Father’s, “Kid!”—rapid, heavy footfalls, and then they drop to their knees beside him, even though he’s fairly sure they’re going to be sucked into the pool of mire beginning to expand beneath him. “Byleth, are you… stay with me,” Edelgard pleads, reaching up to wipe what feels like blood off his face—and he’s sure she means no harm, but every touch sends spasms of pain up and down his body, and he jerks away from her in response. Which, of course, only makes him hurt more, _everywhere._

Father gently pushes her hand away, then makes a gesture at someone to come over—he looks down at Byleth, meets his eyes somehow (does Byleth even have eyes by this point, all he can see are blobs of color) and says, “Kid. Byleth. Come on. You’re stronger than this, aren’t you? You can’t—” His voice cracks in a way Byleth doesn’t remember it doing before, and he swallows before speaking again. “You can’t go now. Not after everything.”

“Father,” Byleth tries to say, but all that comes out is more mire that drips down the side of his chin to join the rest of its brethren beneath him. Even talking makes him want to tear his throat out from the pain.

“You can get through this, Byleth,” Father whispers, bending down close so his tears fall on Byleth’s cheeks. “You’re strong. You always have been, you always will be, and—and you can’t die now, please, didn’t you—didn’t you tell me, you want to be a healer? You told me you don’t like killing, right? Well, it’s all over now, and you’ll never have to kill again, Byleth. You can be whatever you want to b-be, forever, if you… if you can just…”

His words are lost in a harsh exhale, one Edelgard follows up with a stifled sob. “Not you too, Byleth,” she’s saying, again and again. “Not you, too.”

So this is what death feels like, Byleth thinks. He never imagined his chest—no, his _heart_ would hurt so much. He wants to tell Edelgard this isn’t her fault, and he wants to tell Father he doesn’t need to cry over this, and, and…

“Byleth?” a soft voice calls—then, louder, “Byleth!”

And he wants to tell Linhardt he loves him, again and again and again until the words are etched onto their bones, because Byleth never wants to forget how to love and he never wants Linhardt to forget he loves him, and… and there are so many things he needs to tell them, so many things he still needs to learn in this world…

There’s a hand on his face, warm and glowing with faith magic, magic that tastes like the Angelica tea Byleth now knows how to prepare by heart, magic that sounds like the low chatter in the library as old, yellowed pages of books turn to the next chapter, magic that feels like the warmth of the sunlight that filters through their tree every afternoon. Byleth sinks himself into the feeling, focuses on the tang of tea rather than the taste of his blood, on the library books rather than the crackle of fire around him, on that sunshine warmth rather than the pain clawing his body into dust.

“You promised,” Linhardt says, brokenly. Byleth leans into his touch, into his magic. _Grief,_ he feels, and not much else. “You _promised._ ”

And if he could only speak, if he could only say those three words—no, not even, if he could just say _one,_ if he could just say Linhardt’s name one last time…

“Here you are again.”

Byleth stares up at a canopy of leaves. Slowly, slowly, he sits up—there is no pain, and it takes him another moment to realize he’s back to normal, with fingers rather than claws and skin rather than bones. He is sitting in a shallow pool of water so clear it hurts to look at.

“Sothis…?”

“I truly was hoping you would win without suffering such injuries,” Sothis grumbles. She’s sitting at the edge of the pond, her feet dangling in the water. “But I suppose I was also, rather selfishly, hoping to… well, to speak with you again. Face-to-face, rather than in your dreams. But really, how reckless can you—”

She doesn’t get to finish before Byleth is stumbling towards her as fast as his sore legs can allow and wrapping her in a hug he had never been able to give, until now.

“I missed you,” he says into her unruly mass of hair. It’s exactly as soft as his own. “I missed you. I missed you.”

Sothis is silent for a moment, before she speaks again. “I… I heard you the first time, now get off me and stop acting like a child,” she scolds, but there’s a glimmer of tears in her eyes that she furiously scrubs away when Byleth draws back. “Well, you… you’ve done your part now, haven’t you? You really went and did it.”

Byleth nods. Now that he’s here, their victory feels a little easier to believe, somehow. “I’m sorry,” he offers. “I… I know Rhea was your daughter. Or related to you, at least.” He doesn’t say _I didn’t want to kill her,_ because he did—if he has to kill her to stop killing altogether, so be it.

Sothis shakes her head. “Yes. I remember everything, from before my fate was bound with yours. But none of that matters now, my friend. We chose this path together, and I knew this would happen from the start.”

“So…” Byleth looks around them, at the trees and the pond and the Creator Sword lying on the ground just behind him. “Am I dead? For real?”

“Do you want to be?”

Byleth doesn’t have to think about it. “No.”

Sothis smiles, but it’s far from her usual teasing smirk. “I thought so. I know your heart as well as my own. There are still things left for you to do in the living world, are there not? Friends to speak with, an emperor to guide, a father to hug. Someone to love.” She pauses, then looks down at the water. “You will not need me anymore. And I will have to leave you now.”

“What?” Byleth blurts out. “No, I… Of course I need you. I always will. L—Leave? What are you talking about?”

Sothis sighs. “Must I lay it all out for you? You have no need of me anymore, Byleth. You’ve won the war, and though you will still have to fight afterwards, my power will not be what helps you win. Just look at yourself—that dark magic, that was all you, wasn’t it? Hardly any of that was my doing.”

“But I don’t need you for your power,” Byleth argues. “I need you for _you._ ”

“Do not play innocent and try to make me cry! It will not be happening!” Sothis berates, wiping at her face again. “And I am not a complete fool, unlike you! Of… Of course I know you are not so materialistic as to need me for my power. But my power is exactly what is keeping you alive right now, and what will bring you _back_ to life.”

When Byleth doesn’t respond, shock paralyzing his speech, Sothis shakes her head. “Just like old times, no? My ever compassionate heart, sacrificing myself to save your fragile life. This must be the third time by now. Once when we were trapped in that darkness, and once when you were stillborn.”

“I’ll die,” Byleth hurries to say. “I’ll stay with you. I—”

“After you just told me you want to live?” Sothis interrupts, now looking thoroughly frustrated. “Mortals! Have you always been this difficult to talk to? Just let me have the last word with you already, before I never speak to you again!”

“Sothis…”

“Quiet.” Sothis crosses her arms, sighing mock-irritably. “I would have thought you’d be ecstatic at the chance. To be normal, at last.”

Byleth frowns. “To be… human?”

“You have always been human, Byleth.” She gives him a knowing look. “What does it mean to be human for you? As long as you can smile, cry, love, _feel…_ is that not human enough for you yet?”

 _To be human…_ is that all it takes? To be able to feel? To laugh at happiness and to cry at sadness and to love so deeply and so painfully that Byleth would throw himself at a dragon for that same love… he supposes there’s nothing more human than that. “Why is it that we always seem to never have enough time?” he murmurs, staring down at the glowing water.

Sothis smiles sadly, standing up and stepping into the pond to take Byleth’s hand. “Before I go,” she sighs, “won’t you dance with me? One last time.”

Byleth taps into what little of the dancing lessons he remembers from five years ago, but he hardly needs to do much—Sothis dances without a care in the world, barely following his lead and twirling around without needing his guidance, sending glowing droplets of water splashing up and around them. A breeze rustles the leaves overhead, disturbing their shade just enough that light finally begins to shine down upon them, reflecting off the water and turning the entire area blindingly bright—

“Goodbye, my friend,” Byleth hears Sothis breathe, but her voice sounds suddenly so much older and melodic, and the tall figure dancing before him and holding his hand, the goddess clad in a flowing white dress and flowers adorning her hair, dissolves into—no, _becomes_ the light.

_Tell Father I said hello._

When the light brings him back, there is one thing Byleth is suddenly very aware of—a strange drumming in his head, persistent and perpetual and utterly unidentifiable.

And then: _Oh. It’s a heartbeat._

And then, another second later: _Oh. It’s_ my _heartbeat._

“Byleth!” Father shouts—Byleth blinks blankly up at the dark sky, and belatedly realizes he’s back to human here, too. “You—You—Are you alive? Say something!”

“Father,” Byleth mumbles, and he has never quite so loved the sound of his own voice. He sits up, ignoring how his head spins sickeningly enough for bile to rise up at the back of his throat, and wraps his arms around Father—he is not about to wait for another near-death experience before he hugs everyone he cares about. “Sothis,” he manages, through a sudden, uncontrollable stream of tears, “Sothis says hello.”

Father doesn’t say anything for a second—probably both surprised and confused and relieved and a million other emotions Byleth will make sure he’ll learn about now—then hugs Byleth back, squeezing him tight enough that Byleth can forget his body still hurts. “Do you always have to do this?” he asks, voice wet and shaky. “Here and gone and back again?”

“Sorry, I—I—” Byleth draws away, only to pull Edelgard into his arms next. She doesn’t say anything, only buries her face into his shoulder and sucks in deep, trembling breaths that are teetering on the edge of a sob. “Sorry, Edelgard,” he mumbles in her hair. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“I thought—I thought—oh, never mind,” Edelgard exclaims, shaking her head and pushing him away, her hands clutching onto the front of his bloodied coat for a second longer before she lets go.

Byleth means to say something in response, though whatever the words he’d prepared fly straight out of his head when Linhardt grabs both his wrists and casts a Heal spell so strong it’s almost as painful as it is relieving. “How could you do that?” Linhardt shouts, though whatever anger might have been in his voice is drowned out by the tears spilling down his cheeks. “Reckless and suicidal and you _knew_ something like this may have happened, but you—you did it anyway, and—do you _want_ to die!?”

“N… No,” Byleth answers, honestly—Linhardt probably hadn’t been expecting that, because he falters in his next words, giving Byleth the time to both lift Linhardt’s hands up to his face and for him to speak again. “I don’t… I don’t want to die.”

“Then _why?_ ” Linhardt presses. His magic seems to intensify in time with his emotions, because the warmth on Byleth’s face grows uncomfortably hot for a few seconds until Linhardt inhales shakily and bumps their foreheads together again. “You’re _allowed_ to be selfish, Byleth,” he breathes. This close, the ocean-blue of his eyes, illuminated by the firelight, has never been so beautiful. “You’re allowed to want to _live._ ”

Byleth touches his face—and why had he never appreciated how _perfect_ Linhardt is, in the cuts on his cheeks, in the scar just above his right eyebrow, in the glimmer of tears trailing down to his chin? “I know,” he whispers. “I know that now.”

He meets Linhardt halfway for a kiss, one Byleth never wants to pull away from because nothing can compare to _this_ —to the press of their lips together, to the taste of blood on his tongue and the taste of citrus on Linhardt’s. He melts into the feeling of the faith magic he can still feel flowing through his body as if to cleanse the mire out of him, of _Linhardt_ and everything about him Byleth, for some inconceivable reason, had not noticed until now, when his life had come so close to its end.

“Linhardt,” Byleth breathes against his lips, when they eventually, unfortunately have to separate for air. He wants to say his name, over and over again, but for now he settles for saying, “I came back.”

Linhardt sniffs wetly, but still somehow manages to give him a confused look. “What?”

“Remember? If I ever did leave you, I’d find a way to come back.” And, because he can’t help it, Byleth presses another kiss to the corner of Linhardt’s lips right as they curve into a surprised smile. “Like I promised.”

“You…” Linhardt shakes his head. From the corner of Byleth’s eye, he can see Father and Edelgard exchanging uncomfortable glances, but Byleth can’t bring himself to care. “Yes. Like… Like you promised.”

Another kiss—Byleth doesn’t ever want to stop. “You don’t have to kill anymore,” he realizes, disbelief tingeing his voice.

Linhardt sweeps his long (dark blue, again) hair off the ground and drapes it over his shoulder. “Yes,” he repeats. He pulls out the ribbon in his hair and ties Byleth’s into a ponytail, if only to get it off the ground and away from the blood and dirt beneath them. “And neither do you.”

He brushes Byleth’s hair back in the exact same way he had done the first time they’d kissed, and presses close once again—Byleth melts into his lips, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight.

Rhea’s body can burn along with the rest of Fhirdiad for all he cares—all that matters now is that Linhardt is alive, and Edelgard is alive, and Father is alive, and Byleth never wants to have to leave any of them again.

Everyone’s injuries are worse than they’d hoped—Bernadetta had to face off against Annette, and her entire right leg had been burned so badly she may never walk properly again. Hubert and Lysithea had teamed up to take down Gilbert, whose armor had been warded against magic—his axe had sliced off Hubert’s left ear, and if Lysithea hadn’t Warped the both of them away as soon as she distracted Gilbert with a throwaway spell, Hubert likely would have bled to death. Dorothea, Ashe, and Caspar had held off Catherine for as long as they could until Dorothea’s arms were scorched black from thunder magic overuse; afterwards, they’d seen Catherine bent over Rhea’s body, both of them still and unmoving.

Edelgard spends hours in the greenhouse everyday, tending to flowers she eventually lays across the graves of the dead. After Byleth’s deemed well enough to walk around, he joins her against her half-hearted protests—he knows she feels most alone when doing this, especially now without Hubert to accompany her like he always does.

 _Hubert._ He’s always seemed untouchable, somehow—being a magic user meant his worse injuries were almost always magical as well. When Byleth visited him in the infirmary and asked how he was feeling, he hadn’t even turned to look at him. Just days ago, Hubert would have heard his footsteps before he’d opened the door.

Why hadn’t Byleth made sure everyone _else_ was fine? Why had he focused so singlemindedly on Rhea and just three other people? He has the ability to literally turn back time, and yet—

No. He _had_ the ability.

Byleth touches his hair again, just to make sure—and, yes, still dark blue. Still dirty and knotted and unruly, because he has no idea how to do anything with his hair, and still tied back in a loose, low ponytail with Linhardt’s hair ribbon, because he keeps forgetting to give it back in the rare occasions they see each other. Without Sothis, his hair is back to being as difficult to handle as possible, only now made ten times worse with how long it is.

“If you’re so bothered, you should get it cut,” Father tells him over tea, when it’s nearing midnight and they still have a mound of reports to go through. “We’ve still got those shady individuals to take care of. They’re bound to take advantage of your stupidly long hair.”

“Mm.” It’s a good, logical decision. Byleth doesn’t even particularly like how he looks with long hair, although that’s a vague thought at most.

But he runs his hand through his hair, imagines someone else’s hand doing it, remembers how Sothis’ hair had felt, the first time he had ever touched it without his hand passing through—imagines how Mother might have looked—and shakes his head. “I like it this way.”

Father’s expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes when he looks up at Byleth. “Whatever you want, kid.”

Whatever he wants—it occurs to Byleth that he actually _can_ choose to do whatever he wants now, whether to follow Edelgard into another war with those who slither in the dark or not. (He hasn’t quite decided yet—there’s so much to do, what with helping care for the injured and taking over some of Hubert’s usual tasks, that he’s pushed the issue of their next war to the very back of his head.) He has the rest of his normal, _mortal_ life ahead of him, and the concept of living without needing to kill anyone anymore is almost too impossible to believe.

“Oh, yeah—” Father reaches over and slides something across his desk. Byleth plucks it off the table, peering at it in the dim candlelight, but he doesn’t need to see it to know what it is. “This came back from Anna just a while ago. She even imbued it to strengthen faith magic for free, as thanks for the war efforts.”

Byleth holds the ring up by its gold chain, the inset gem glittering faintly. “Thank you.” Its chain had been chipped and cracked throughout the consecutive battles, and Byleth hadn’t wanted to wait until it broke again before sending it to repairs, especially since the chain has begun to mean as much to him as the ring itself.

But… speaking of the ring… he shouldn’t really be keeping it to himself, should he? This ring was made to be given to someone, and Father had known that when he’d given it to Byleth.

As if knowing what he’d been thinking, Father flips through some documents and says, very casually, without looking up, “It’s a moonstone, y’know. The gem in the ring, I mean. It’s supposed to protects its wearer from danger.”

“I see.”

Father clears his throat. “Any thoughts about, you know. Who to give that to? If you’re giving it at all, ‘course. No pressure or anything.”

Byleth shrugs. “Haven’t really been thinking about it.” Though he definitely is _now._

“Right,” Father says, very slowly. He looks up from his papers, probably trying not to look too interested. “But… you know. If you _had_ to pick someone.”

“I don’t, though.”

“ _Byleth…_ ”

Byleth can’t resist a smile. Had smiles always come this easy? He hopes they always will, from now on. “It’s a nice ring. Maybe I’ll keep it for myself.”

Father just sighs, dropping the papers he had evidently not been reading back on his desk. “Oh, suit yourself. But I need to know _before_ you give it to someone, alright? If you do, obviously. I’m not… expecting anyone, specifically. Definitely not.”

Byleth shrugs again, but tucks the ring into his tattered coat instead of clasping it around his neck again.

It’s already past midnight, but once they finish up the reports, Byleth heads towards the Goddess Tower rather than his dorm room—he tells himself it’s because he needs the fresh air, and when he gets to the midway point at the tower’s staircase, he almost believes himself. There’s a cool, gentle breeze blowing, ruffling his hair and brushing the stray strands out of his face.

He closes his eyes. It feels nice.

“Oh—” A soft voice, and the _click_ of heeled boots. “You’re rather early this time, aren’t you?”

Byleth blinks and turns around, though he’s hardly surprised when he sees Linhardt standing before him. Unlike the last time they’d been here, Byleth’s the one standing on the upper step while Linhardt approaches, hand resting on the railing. “Early…? We didn’t have plans to meet up, did we?”

“No,” Linhardt says, leaning against the railing with a knowing smile, “but I can hope, can’t I? Besides, you must be here for some reason.”

Byleth nods. “To see you.”

“What made you think I’d come up here anyway?”

“Hm… intuition?” Byleth shrugs. “I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking. But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.” He reaches behind himself and pulls the ribbon out of his hair, letting it fall loose around his face again. “Here. Sorry it took a while—I kept forgetting.”

Linhardt visibly brightens and reaches for the ribbon, but stops halfway and gives Byleth a look. “Do it for me?”

“Oh—” Byleth wills his cheeks not to color—he’s done Linhardt’s hair a number of times by now, but somehow he never seems to improve very much. No matter how many times Linhardt lets him practice, perfecting the art of hair-tying will probably elude him for the rest of his life. “Okay.”

Linhardt faces their surroundings, elbows propped up on the staircase railing, while Byleth diligently ties his hair behind him (making the exact same mistakes as last time, and the time before that, and the time before that). “I remember the first time we were here together,” he muses. “You gave me your uniform hat because you thought I found it cute.”

Byleth pauses. “Didn’t you?”

“I was calling _you_ cute,” Linhardt says, and Byleth doesn’t need to see him to know he’s rolling his eyes. “How could you have missed something like that?”

“ _What?_ ” Only common sense (and a fear of Linhardt’s cold rage) keeps Byleth from pulling his hair. “You didn’t. You were talking about the hat. I wouldn’t—I _couldn’t_ have missed that.” Could he have? It wasn’t as if his emotional capacity was more than the size of a peanut at that time.

“Why would I care about your hat. _Dorothea_ had the same hat, Byleth, and I certainly didn’t go around calling it cute.”

“But… I… that’s…” Byleth stares at the long strands of hair in his fingers, feeling as if his whole life has been a complete lie. “The… The hat _is_ cute, though, right? You wouldn’t have accepted it if it weren’t.”

Linhardt sighs in what sounds like fond exasperation. “If you want me to say yes, I’ll simply have to say yes.”

“Linhardt…”

“It was certainly an eventful night,” Linhardt allows, turning slightly to give Byleth a small smile. He doesn’t seem to mind that his hair, though tied, is nowhere near its usual level of neatness; Byleth’s beginning to think he just likes the feeling of Byleth’s fingers in his hair. “I gave you that ring, too. That flew straight over your head as well, didn’t it?”

Byleth pouts. “It’s a… a very thoughtful gift.” He looks at it now, at the crystal that glitters in the moonlight, and briefly lets go of Linhardt’s hair to rub his thumb over the familiar grooves of the gem. “You know,” he says, “I went to the gremory who charmed the ring. She said the color’s supposed to mean something.”

“Did she?” Linhardt asks, sounding as if he already knew. He probably did, really. Byleth’s not sure where he’s even going with this conversation. “What do you think, then?”

Byleth lifts his hand up to the light, examining the ring from all angles again. And, there—turned to the side, the mint green turns into something brighter and whiter, the closest to sunlight it’s ever been. “Green for the leaves of our tree,” he murmurs, running his other hand through Linhardt’s hair. “White for the sun.”

Linhardt leans back into his touch until he’s tilting his head up enough to see the ring as well. “That’s almost disgustingly sentimental. I always just thought it predicted how your hair would change.”

“Oh. Well, maybe that, too.” It doesn’t sound far-off, after all. It definitely seems like something Sothis would do, if she had any real control over the prayer ring while living in his head.

“Don’t look so disappointed. I like your interpretation as well.” Linhardt turns around all the way, unbothered by how messy his hair’s gotten after Byleth’s fruitless attempts, and slips the ring off his finger. He strokes the grooves along the side of the gem, in the same way Byleth’s done countless times on and off the battlefield, then turns it to look inside. “Did you ever find out what I prayed for?”

“Hm?”

“Remember? To make a prayer ring, you have to pray for something.” Linhardt’s thumb absently runs over the letters engraved on the inside of the ring. “I figured it’d be more fun to let you find out yourself. But did you just forget about it?”

Byleth flushes. “Of course not.” He thinks about it every time he finds himself looking down at the ring—even if he can figure out the meaning behind its colors (if that’s the correct interpretation at all), he still can’t really think of what Linhardt might have prayed for.

What had the gremory said? _A most selfless prayer…_

“I should probably let you know that you are squirming right now,” Linhardt points out.

“What? I am not.”

“Maybe not externally. But internally, I can see it.” Linhardt takes his hand and slips the ring back on, slowly enough that Byleth wonders if he’s savoring the moment. “Can you really not figure it out?”

Byleth frowns. If he’s going based off the gem’s color, then his first thought is that Linhardt wished for more days of rest and relaxation. It certainly sounds like something he’d wish for, after all. But to pray for _Byleth_ to have those days rather than just doing it for himself seems a little far-fetched. “You prayed for… me, right? Not for yourself?”

“I’d hardly be giving you the ring if it were a wish for myself.” Linhardt pauses. He’s still holding onto Byleth’s hand, and he doesn’t seem about to let go. Byleth doesn’t want him to, either. “But… I suppose it’s for me, too, in a way. I’ll give you a hint: for quite a while, I thought it didn’t work.”

The idea comes to Byleth so quickly that he wonders how he hadn’t thought of it before. “Did you pray that I wouldn’t leave you?”

“Close.”

“Oh. Um… I wouldn’t die?”

“Sort of,” Linhardt allows. “But still not quite.”

“You’re making this more difficult than it should be,” Byleth huffs. “Can’t you just tell me?”

“You have to exercise that brain of yours _some_ times,” Linhardt teases. “You’re getting there. Just a bit more, Byleth.”

With a sigh, Byleth wracks his head for more thoughts, but either he’s exhausted his maximum thought count for the day or there simply is nothing else he can imagine Linhardt praying for. Maybe he should try something more generic. “Safety?” he tries. It’s a common thing to wish for in prayers, after all.

He’s not expecting Linhardt to look down instead of responding right away, and Byleth feels a smile coming on when he catches the hint of pink on Linhardt’s cheeks. “You prayed for my safety,” Byleth says, shifting their hands together so that their fingers interlock. “And I think you prayed that we’d meet again someday. So during those five years, when I was gone…”

“I prayed for your protection too, if you must know,” Linhardt mumbles. He’s _shy._ Byleth can’t get enough of it. “You’re always talking about protecting others, you probably don’t think about protecting _yourself._ So I figured someone had to do something about that.” He pauses. “Even if, well… Even if it’s a prayer ring that might just be a gold trap.”

“Protection…” Byleth mulls it over. He supposes he certainly has survived a number of battles he probably shouldn’t have, especially the last one. “That’s cute of you.”

“If you call me cute again, I will hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You’d be surprised.” Linhardt shakes his head, but there’s a smile on his face that Byleth can’t help but kiss—the smile grows against his lips, and when Byleth pulls back, there’s a light in Linhardt’s eyes that he can’t remember having seen in a while. “The war is over, Byleth,” he says, very quietly. “What will you do now? Edelgard isn’t forcing us to join her in eradicating those who slither in the dark.”

Byleth goes for a shrug. “I… I don’t really know, either.” As soon as all matters are taken care of, Garreg Mach Monastery won’t be their base of operations anymore, and Byleth doesn’t know where he and Father will be going. Maybe back to the mercenary life, but Father knows Byleth wouldn’t want that. Maybe they’ll join Edelgard after all, because Byleth wants nothing more than to make sure Fódlan doesn’t descend into another hellscape thanks to Solon’s kind, but the thought of more danger and more killing makes him sick. Maybe…

“I was thinking,” Byleth murmurs, at the same time Linhardt says, “I was wondering,” and they both stop to stare blankly at each other. “You go first,” Byleth eventually offers.

Uncharacteristically enough, Linhardt doesn’t speak right away—he ducks his head instead, avoiding Byleth’s gaze, and heaves a heavy sigh. “Do you remember,” he starts, voice almost too soft to hear, “the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion?”

That feels so far away—back to a time when fighting each other didn’t mean killing, when the three Houses on opposing sides didn’t mean three regions of the continent at each others’ throats. Byleth swallows and nods, looking down at their interlocked hands. “Yes,” he manages. “You said you were… um, that time with Claude… Were you gossiping?”

“Say that word again and you will regret it.”

“But you were—”

“We were _talking,_ ” Linhardt sighs, “about not just you, but… but about me as well. I admit I didn’t tell you the whole truth—I mentioned it had something to do with your emotions, right? Or lack thereof, at that time.” At Byleth’s curious nod, Linhardt continues, reluctance obvious in his features. “Somehow, even back then, Claude… knew I felt… um, something. For you.”

“…Huh?”

“I felt. Something. For you,” Linhardt repeats through gritted teeth.

Byleth frowns. “Weren’t we a little… young?”

“Oh, hush! The point stands. Besides, it was little more than a puppy crush at that time.”

“How about now?”

“What will it take to shut you up,” Linhardt grumbles, his cheeks endearingly red. Byleth has to physically restrain himself from kissing him again. “Anyway—he was trying to distract me, that I know now. I doubt he meant anything personal by it. But he told me to… well, to stop hoping, in a way. To stop thinking I’d ever have a chance with you, because everyone thought you were incapable of emotions.”

_Do you think those feelings of yours will ever be returned if it’s literally impossible?_

“Oh,” Byleth breathes. It all rushes back to him—the cold rage in Linhardt’s voice, the way his magic had spun out of control, the way he had stared at his singed hands, at _himself,_ in fear. How had it taken him this long to figure it out? _Why_ had it taken him this long to figure it out? “Oh…”

“It bothered me.” Linhardt shrugs. “That he thought he had any right to poke his nose in my—no, _our_ business like that. Though of course he’d think of some underhanded tactic to try and win the fight… then later on, when I asked you whether I should keep going and keep hoping or to just give up altogether—”

“ _What?_ ” Byleth stammers. “ _That’s_ what your question was about?” He still sort of remembers what Linhardt had asked— _if you were to find yourself in a hopeless situation, where the only way you could get out of it was to give up something you care very much for, what would you do?_ —if only because he had mulled over it for days on end afterwards. “How was I supposed to know what you were talking about? Don’t you think that was a little vague?”

Linhardt laughs softly, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I’ve had five years to forget about that. But when you told me I shouldn’t have gotten into the situation in the first place… well, I figured that was your way of telling me to give up, too.” He shrugs. “So… I tried. Hard. To stop liking you. I was fairly sure that was impossible considering how much time we spent around each other, but I had to try. What else was I to do? Actually communicate?”

“Yes, that would’ve been nice,” Byleth mumbles.

“I am going to pretend I did not hear that,” Linhardt graciously tells him. “But… let me test your memory a little more. Do you remember… when I told you what I thought whenever I look at you?”

Byleth falters. “Um… can you give me a timeframe?”

“Goddess, you _don’t._ ”

“That’s not it!” Byleth hurries to say, even as Linhardt breaks off into laughter. “I have awful memory, you know that. But it’ll help if you told me—wait—” He scowls and wracks his head for the words, but his brain really must have given up on him for the day, because he comes up completely empty. “This is even more vague, Linhardt,” he complains.

Linhardt is still smiling when he responds, and Byleth can’t help but be a tiny bit relieved. “It was right after Remire Village. You told me you’d never let me die, remember?”

 _Remire Village…_ Just remembering what Solon had done makes Byleth’s blood boil. But he brushes that thought away and focuses on what had happened afterwards instead. They’d been in the infirmary together, right? Linhardt was healing him, and… “Oh,” Byleth breathes. “Right. I remember.”

_I just want to lie in the grass and soak up the sun filtering down through the trees together with you… That’s all I want._

Linhardt clears his throat and laces their fingers even tighter together. Byleth doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so nervous before. “Well, after everything, I realized just _stopping_ myself from liking you really was impossible. Because—when I said that, I… think that was the first time I realized I love you.”

Byleth stares blankly at his face for long enough that Linhardt’s eyes flick away nervously. “That’s—That’s unfair,” Byleth stutters. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, too loud to let him focus on anything else—how on Earth has the human race lived this long with something so distracting? “You can’t… You can’t just say that. Can you?”

“I think I can, actually,” Linhardt argues, his nervousness giving way for a smug expression at Byleth’s words. Great. Now Byleth’s going to be at the mercy of his teasing for the rest of the week, probably. “But there you have it. And then, right before the battle at Garreg Mach, when you told me about what happened with Flayn in the library—”

“I remember that,” Byleth hurries to say, just to prove his memory isn’t completely useless. “You, um—You were healing me. And then, and then I felt that warmth—” He stiffens when he realizes that warmth isn’t just _that warmth_ anymore—he has a name for it, at last, and there’s no reason for him not to use it. “Love,” he murmurs. “I felt the… I felt your love.”

“Sharp memory,” Linhardt commends, but he’s not looking at Byleth again. “But I wasn’t sure yet, of what I really felt—and of what _you_ felt, if you felt anything at all, if you ever would. So—what I said that day—”

“When you were sure about it, you’d tell me then,” Byleth continues. The exact words have never been clearer in his memory. “And…”

“And I’ve told you already, haven’t I?” Linhardt presses close for a brief kiss, one Byleth can barely even enjoy before Linhardt’s already pulling away. “But I’ll tell you again now. I… love you. Even if I tried to stop, for a while—even when you were gone in those five years—I told myself I’d stop, but I never could. I don’t think I ever will. So…”

He exhales shakily, then retrieves something from his pocket with his free hand—Byleth doesn’t even have time to wonder as to what it could be when Linhardt flicks the small, antique-looking box open to reveal an even more antique-looking ring. “I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine,” Linhardt says, finally lifting his head to look at Byleth, and Byleth briefly wonders as to why he’d been blessed with such beautiful eyes. “You told me, five years ago, that you wanted to be with me too. How about now?”

For a moment, Byleth can’t do or say or think anything at all—all he can register is the breeze choosing this exact moment to pick up in speed, sending his hair flowing out behind him like a battle flag, and the way Linhardt is looking at him with trepidation written all over his face.

Not knowing what to do, Byleth looks down at the ring nestled in the box first—it’s obviously old, as if crafted an extremely long time ago, but he can only tell that based on its design. Everything else about it looks as good as new. The inset gem is a bright emerald, and glimmering lightly on its surface is what is undoubtedly the Crest of Cethleann. “This ring,” Byleth abruptly speaks; “it’s a family heirloom, isn’t it?”

Linhardt stares at him in evident disbelief. “That… is not an answer to the question I just asked.”

“But it _is,_ ” Byleth presses, “isn’t it?”

“Ugh. Yes, it is.” Linhardt glances down at the ring, as if making sure he’d gotten the right one. “It was crafted long before my great-great-great grandfather was born, probably. All I know is that it’s been passed down in our family for generations, and it’s supposedly blessed by Saint Cethleann herself, hence the Crest. The, er, the emerald—it means success in love.” He pauses, then gives Byleth a very meaningful look. “Which I _might_ have, if you’ll just answer me already—”

“Mine’s a family heirloom too,” Byleth interrupts. He fishes Father’s ring out of his coat, pretending not to see Linhardt sputter, and does his best to present it as regally as Linhardt is currently doing. Which is hard, because it doesn’t have a box and the gold chain clanks noisily in the relative quiet, but Byleth will just have to deal with it. “Well, I think it is, at least. I just know it belonged to my father—I don’t know if it was made before my great-great-great grandfather was born… and, uh, it wasn’t blessed by a Saint or anything either, and I don’t know how to put the Crest of Flames on this, and even if I _did_ know, I don’t have the Crest anymore, so it would probably be impossible…”

He trails off unsurely, not knowing how else to advertise his ring the same way Anna advertises her products. Linhardt isn’t saying anything either—what else can Byleth tell him? “But the gem,” Byleth hurries to add, glad Father had brought it up earlier, “is a moonstone. It protects you from danger. So even if I’m far away, I’m still protecting you… sort of.”

Seconds tick by in silence. The two rings glimmer beside each other, winking up at their respective owners.

“So,” Linhardt eventually says, “which one of us is going to accept which ring first?”

“Will you marry me?” Byleth blurts out.

Linhardt grabs Byleth by the wrist and pulls him in for a long, deep kiss—Byleth doesn’t quite suppress the surprised gasp he makes, but he melts into the kiss all the same, his hand coming up to tangle in Linhardt’s hair and tug him even closer. “Yes,” Linhardt breathes against his lips, and if Byleth tastes saltwater on his tongue then that’s for only the both of them to know. “Yes, you absolute fool, _yes._ ”

“I love you,” Byleth whispers. He presses a kiss to Linhardt’s cheek, his nose, his forehead, his jaw, then back to his lips—he should probably find it gross that their tears are mixing together by this point, but he can’t bring himself to care. “I love you,” he says—“I _love you_ ,” he repeats, over and over, for all the times he should have but hadn’t, for all the times he could have but didn’t. “Even if I didn’t before, I love you now. And—I’ll love you always. For as long as you’ll have me, Lin.”

“ _Lin,_ huh?” Linhardt murmurs, laughing wetly.

 _Oh—_ Byleth’s only ever said that nickname once before, and it had also come out unbidden. Linhardt had been unconscious then, but now he isn’t quite so lucky. “Um… hardt,” Byleth adds, incredibly late.

Linhardt smiles. “It’s fine. I don’t mind. I like it, actually.” Their faces are still close enough that Byleth could kiss him and barely need to move—so he does, pressing his lips to the corner of Linhardt’s, and feels them curve up into a smile.

“But Caspar and Dorothea already call you that.” Byleth frowns, trying to think of a suitable nickname. “Lin…ny? Linny?”

“That is horrifying.”

“It’s decided. Linny.” Byleth kisses him again, as if to seal the deal, and Linhardt backs away with a laugh. “You don’t like it?” He pouts.

Linhardt jabs a finger in his chest. “I’ll cast Silence on you before you call me that in public.”

“So, in private is okay?”

Linhardt doesn’t respond immediately, which is how Byleth knows he’s won. He smiles, but lets that fade when he mulls over it some more—he’s not much of a nickname person, but he still wants something to call Linhardt when others are around, if only to let everyone know they’re each other’s. “What else is there, then? Linhardt… what does your name mean, anyway?”

Linhardt sighs. “Lion-hearted. That’s what my mother told me, at least—I’ve never bothered to find out from anywhere else.”

 _Lion-hearted._ It suits him, somehow. At first glance, Linhardt doesn’t seem anywhere near brave or courageous, but Byleth doesn’t think any other meaning would have been as accurate. “Then…” Byleth presses a hand to his chest. “My heart.”

“Wh… Huh?”

Byleth kisses the underside of his jaw again, but doesn’t pull away right after. “My heart,” he whispers against Linhardt’s skin—Linhardt shivers, his grip on Byleth’s hand tightening almost imperceptibly. “Because it’ll always belong to you. Makes sense, right? Do you like it?”

An unsteady inhale, as if Linhardt doesn’t quite trust his voice; then, “Still not in public.”

“Hmph…” Byleth’s going to have to think of something else, then. He’s too stubborn to settle for just _Lin._ But the thought of calling Linhardt all sorts of things in private makes his heart leap in his chest—and he still can’t get used to the feeling of having a _heartbeat,_ after living so long without one. In some ways, it’s terribly inconvenient—in others, he wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

Linhardt shakes his head, looking amused. “Speaking of your heart… it’s beating now, isn’t it? You’ll have to tell me about what happened sometime.”

“Mm.” Byleth pretends to frown. “But you _are_ sure about marrying me, aren’t you?” At Linhardt’s half-confused, half-affronted look, he adds, “I don’t have a Crest anymore, so you might get bored of me after a while…”

Predictably enough, Linhardt smacks him. “You don’t need a Crest for me to be interested in you. There’s plenty of other things to research.” But his expression softens when he takes Byleth’s right hand and slips the ring of Cethleann onto his finger, the emerald glimmering brilliantly in the moonlight. “As I thought,” he mumbles. “It fits just right.”

Oh. Byleth hadn’t thought about _finger size._ What if _his_ ring doesn’t fit Linhardt? Will he have to ask Anna for help, or will it be a hopeless case? “Um, my ring—” He swallows, taking Linhardt’s hand and trying not to feel too pressured by the waiting look on his face. “If it doesn’t fit…”

“Calm down.” Linhardt prods Byleth’s hand, and Byleth hesitantly begins to slip it on—but the ring is too large, and Byleth’s fairly sure one sharp movement of Linhardt’s hand and the ring will come flying right off.

“Oh, no,” Byleth sighs. “Linhardt, I—”

“ _Calm down,_ ” Linhardt repeats, looking more amused than anything. He pulls the ring off, reattaches it to its gold chain, then strings it around his neck. He hadn’t bothered with his usual high-necked blouses, so the ring settles comfortably in the dip of his chest, just below his collarbones. “Did you forget how you’ve been wearing this the entire time?”

Byleth blinks. “Oh.” He sighs again as he leans in to kiss Linhardt’s throat, appreciating Linhardt’s surprised breath. “I think my brain’s reached its maximum usage for today.”

“Yes. I realized that some time ago.”

“You won’t even comfort me…” Byleth drags his lips down the rest of Linhardt’s neck—when Linhardt had done this to him last time, it’d been far too much for his senses to take in all at once. But when he’s on the giving end and _feeling_ Linhardt shudder beneath him, it’s several times more satisfying. “You’re still up for living near a river, right?”

One of Linhardt’s hands comes up to stroke Byleth’s hair. “M-Mm.”

“But just the two of us this time. I think Hubert would rather drink his own poison than be with us.” Byleth nips lightly at a spot above his collarbone, and Linhardt jolts at the feeling, his hand fisting in Byleth’s hair. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Linhardt gasps out, huffing a laugh under his breath, “that you need to step back for a little bit.”

Byleth does so, trying not to look too disappointed—only to yelp in surprise when Linhardt takes his hand and flicks his wrist, and a white light envelops them both. As soon as the vaguely dizzying sensation passes, Byleth blinks his eyes open to look around and see… a very familiar room.

“Warp is the most useful spell outside of battle, I’ve learned,” Linhardt says, looking incredibly smug. He falls back on his bed, pushing away books and notes to topple onto the floor, and looks expectantly up at Byleth, the ring on his neck glittering in the moonlight. “Well? Won’t you continue?”

Byleth _laughs_ as he kicks off his shoes and climbs up on the bed to kiss Linhardt’s lips first—he savors the taste of Linhardt on his tongue, then moves on to carefully begin the long, arduous task of undressing him.

It may be a long time yet before the day can come where they can do what they want—to nap under a tree, _their_ tree, where the sunbeams filter through the rustling leaves above them, and Angelica herbs sway in the breeze around them. Maybe they’ll still have to fight, to bleed, to kill—maybe they’ll still have days where they never want to leave their room, and maybe they’ll still have days when the world feels too bleak to live in.

But when those days are over, and when their days begin…

Paradise. And they will have made it so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[so why don’t we just fall in love tonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39-Dbl9DTnk) _
> 
> \- [the origin of linny](https://twitter.com/featherxs/status/1210127779062116352?s=21)  
> \- [emerald and moonstone meanings](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7lr3mahq6l58nob/Our%20Deportment%20Flower%20Language%20Excerpt%201881.pdf)
> 
> there's still an epilogue (and some not-so-secret bonus content), so don't forget to come by for the last time next sunday! :)


	24. “welcome home.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth doesn’t know much about weddings, but he does have a feeling his and Linhardt’s barely qualified for one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ [when i’m with you, it’s like everything glows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTSdJEGswtg) _
> 
> a little late for my standards, but i had to do a lot of editing for this one. did you know this chapter was supposed to be 1/10 of its current length? yeah.  
> in any case: another sun, another beam :) please enjoy the epilogue! if you're interested in bonus content/DLC, make sure to read the end notes too!!

_He’s underground._

_He knows this place. It’s underground, deathly silent. Everything glows faint green. The last time he had been here, it was the complete opposite—it was nothing but battle and bloodshed, Imperial soldiers trying to cut down his friends, Rhea snarling and morphing into the Immaculate One before them for the first time. The last time he had been here, the ceiling had caved in, and he had gotten one last look at the savage eyes of the Archbishop before Hubert Warped them away from the Holy Tomb._

_But now, it’s deserted, devoid of life. The ceiling is whole and untouched. There are no soldiers. There are no students. It is only him, and a soft humming further inside the tomb._

_Byleth closes his eyes, opens them. He knows where he is, who he is. But this is not his body._

_He can’t control it when he takes one step forward, then another, then another. He’s not sure if the tomb is bigger than he remembers or if it’s just because this body is moving absurdly slowly, but it takes what feels like several minutes before he finds the source of the humming._

_It’s her._

_He’s never seen her in this form before, unless brief flashes of images he can barely remember count. But somehow he knows this is her before… before everything. He would know that long, flowing green hair everywhere, mirrored in his own. And that voice—he hasn’t heard it in so long, but he thinks he’d recognize it on his deathbed._

_Sothis—the Beginning, the Fell Star—is draped atop the throne in his dreams, her eyes closed in peaceful sleep but humming all the same. He’s heard this song before, on one late night as he snuck through the monastery hallways._

_His arms, burly and muscled, lift of their own accord. In one hand is a hunting knife, the one used for skinning wild animals. Green light bounces off its blade._

No. No. What was happening? No—

_Sothis’ eyes flutter open the moment before the blade sinks into her chest._

No! No, _no—_

_There is a scream, long and loud. The Holy Tomb rumbles, but he cannot be sure if it is because of the sudden noise or because this is Sothis’ domain, threatening to crumble down along with her._

She’s hurting, she’s hurting, he can’t—

_But he doesn’t stop—he jerks the knife out, green blood splattering onto the throne and on his clothes, then plunges it back in the wound. She screams, and screams, and screams until her voice peters out into a soft, pained cry—and then, nothing._

_For a long while, silence reigns. Her screams echo in his ears, along with the vague melody of the song._

_Then he tears the wound open, and sinks the knife in until the blade hits bone._

“—leth—Byleth!”

He can’t think, can’t see, can’t _breathe—_ Sothis, he has to save her, he—reaches for the side, gropes blindly in the dark for the handle of his sword or his dagger, kicks the suffocating heat off his legs and closes his fist around—

 _Warmth._ Library books. Hot tea.

Byleth stills, slows. The Heal spell pulses through his skin for several long seconds until it comes to a stop. He blinks, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and stares directly ahead of him—there’s a window before him, along with a cluttered desk and a bookshelf shoved to the side. One book has toppled off its ledge and is lying forlornly on the floor.

Beside him, Linhardt draws his hands back from Byleth’s arm. Even in the dark, Byleth can see how wide his ocean-blue eyes have gone, can see the flicker of fear in them. Byleth looks down at his own hand—he’d gone for the side of the bed, where his dresser drawer used to be in the monastery dorm room. Where Athame used to lay atop and where the Creator Sword used to lean against.

But Athame is atop the icebox of fish, just as he left it earlier today, and the Creator Sword is still covered under some old, dusty cloth, tucked somewhere else in the house. There is no Holy Tomb, no Sothis, no uncontrollable body that had murdered her and carved weapons from her bones. This is his bedroom, and Linhardt is beside him, and the war is over.

Byleth lies back down, burying his face in the crook of Linhardt’s shoulder. Linhardt says nothing, only draping one arm over his chest to stroke his long, knotted hair.

They keep a lantern on every night from then on.

Byleth doesn’t know much about weddings, but he does have a feeling his and Linhardt’s barely qualified for one.

It was a small ceremony, held in the monastery’s cathedral with Mercedes officiating. Caspar’s sniffles kept echoing whenever Mercedes was in the middle of saying something. Jeritza accidentally fell asleep. Father tried to keep a straight face but started crying somewhere halfway, and Manuela teased him about it for days afterwards. When Mercedes declared, “You may now kiss each other,” Linhardt initiated _tongue,_ in the middle of the _entire Black Eagle Strike Force,_ and Byleth was mortified beyond belief.

He returned it, though. It felt nice. He distinctly remembers Edelgard burying her face in one hand while covering Lysithea’s eyes with the other, and Hubert was the one to tell them when it was “safe” to look up again.

The war against the Agarthans began in earnest while Linhardt flicked through real estate brochures plucked off the counter of Anna’s store. Edelgard chopped heads off somewhere in Shambhala while Byleth settled things with their dealer and mulled over how to pay back their loan. They fished together for hours on end by the Airmid River, their thighs touching, their feet sending ripples through the water, and then once the sun began to set they would pack up, fishing rods and icebox tossed somewhere in the garden, and take the carriage ride to the edge of Hrym territory to heal the injured soldiers.

Among the members of the Strike Force, it was Father, Ferdinand, Caspar, Ashe, Leonie, and Lysithea who joined the war—and, of course, Edelgard, Hubert, and Jeritza. When Byleth asked him about it, Linhardt shook his head once, decisive. “No more fighting,” he said. “No more killing. If you want to go, go. But I can’t take another life.”

“That’s fine,” Byleth said. “I don’t want to, either.”

He hadn’t said he _couldn’t_ kill anymore—he knew, even then, that he was still entirely capable of the act, even if the Crest Stone within the Creator Sword no longer beat at his touch. Byleth supposes his own heartbeat is its replacement, and it was that, above all else, that made him most aware of Sothis’ absence within him. Killing, he thinks, would always come naturally. It was the way he was raised, born amidst blood and fire and death.

Most of his injuries from their final battle against the Immaculate One had healed, but Sothis had left a jagged scar on his chest, just above his heart, where Athame had pierced him. He had sworn off dark magic since that day, and the very thought of casting another Mire spell makes the scar burn against his flesh.

Neither of them kill again. But the war against those who slithered in the dark was merciless, unforgiving, worse than anyone expected. With one ear cut off, Hubert could no longer be sent out for reconnaissance, making ambushes and surprise attacks several times more difficult to initiate. In one particularly brutal battle, a dark mage caught Jeritza in his right arm, and despite every available healer’s best efforts, they could only partially regrow the bones. Byleth watched him swing his scythe with his left, non-dominant hand a hundred times every night until Linhardt dragged him back to their carriage.

“Dark magic has a habit of inflicting unhealable wounds,” Hubert said, once. Linhardt was mending a burnt patch of skin on his back, and Byleth stood leaning against a wall in his room in the Imperial Palace. “You two should know that better than anyone.”

“And so?” Linhardt returned. “At least follow that up with some helpful information, if you’re going to mention it at all.”

“They are unhealable for a reason. What helpful information is there to give against that?” Hubert reached up, fingers brushing the side of his head where he’d grown his hair out even longer to cover up. “The best you can do is to bring back what you can, and keep what you still have left.”

Byleth wasn’t sure if Hubert had been talking about anything specific, but the scar on his chest twinged with pain all the same.

When the war ended, they were all worse for wear and left with a continent to run. Edelgard and Ferdinand argued about laws and regulations nightly—Hubert bought sleeping herbs from Anna in bulk. After much badgering, Bernadetta eventually moved into the Imperial Palace as well, though only after Lysithea promised they could share the library. Caspar and Ashe decided to travel the world with Meatloaf. Mercedes established an orphanage. Dorothea returned to the opera, and Father and Manuela returned to the Officers Academy.

Byleth fishes. He cuts what he catches open with Athame, and cooks long enough that he no longer needs to follow along with a written recipe. The Creator Sword is placed in some unassuming corner of their spare room. Linhardt naps.

“You know,” Linhardt says, one early morning, face still pressed against Byleth’s neck in bed, “I don’t think I can sleep without you.”

“Don’t exaggerate. You can sleep anywhere.”

“I’m not,” Linhardt mumbles, and then promptly falls asleep again. Byleth pulls him a little closer, tugs the covers up until his chin, and watches the sun rise from their window.

On their first chilly winter morning, Byleth pulls out an extra blanket, drapes it over Linhardt, and shrugs into his thickest sweater before heading to their kitchenette. Byleth hasn’t made Linhardt breakfast in bed yet, mostly because neither of them tend to wake up before lunchtime these days, but for a cold day like this, hot tea and warm blankets sound nice together.

Byleth is in the middle of fiddling with the stove when he hears the crash.

It takes exactly two seconds to sprint back to the bedroom—Linhardt is thrashing in bed, eyes squeezed shut, screaming and crying and hands glowing with a faint blue-green glow. “L-Lin,” Byleth stammers—“ _Linhardt,_ ” he shouts, rushing forward, practically collapsing onto the bed as he takes Linhardt’s shaking wrists in his hands. “Linhardt, calm down—”

“Don’t,” Linhardt’s begging, “don’t, go away, _not him,_ ” and then the only reason Byleth doesn’t get sliced in two is because he feels it the second before the blades of wind fly from Linhardt’s hands, slashing into the wall in front of him and nearly bringing the roof down on them. It was that feeling, that sensation, like all the air in the room had been scraped out of every corner and placed in Linhardt’s palms.

Byleth tightens his grip on Linhardt’s wrists and casts a Heal spell, pouring reassurance into it—Linhardt goes still, the tension melting off his shoulders.

“I’m here,” Byleth murmurs, just as Linhardt’s eyes flutter open. “I’m here. I’m here, Linhardt.”

“You,” Linhardt rasps, and doesn’t get further than that. He rests his forehead against Byleth’s shoulder, breaths deep and heavy, and Byleth casts more Heal spells across his palms, sealing up the lacerations that had opened.

“I told you,” Linhardt says, after a long while. “I can’t sleep without you.”

“Okay.” Byleth swallows. “Got it. I won’t leave again.”

The war is over. At night, Linhardt leaves a lantern on—in the morning, Byleth waits for both of them to wake up.

If there’s anything that had hardly changed over the years, it’s Father standing by Edelgard’s side. He had done so when they were still students in the monastery, when Edelgard ascended and was crowned Emperor, when the fight against the Agarthans intensified everyday, and now when Fódlan is going through ever-changing changes.

“Why did you return to the monastery?” Byleth asks him. They’d taken the four-day carriage trip to the Imperial Palace in Enbarr, and Byleth has to pretend he hadn’t almost thrown up on Linhardt’s book somewhere around the third day.

Father shrugs. “Teaching isn’t so bad.”

“I thought you hated kids.”

“I raised you, didn’t I?” Father grumbles, ruffling his hair. It doesn’t work as well as it used to when Byleth’s hair was much (much, _much)_ shorter, but it’s comfortingly familiar. “‘Sides, not much use for a mercenary since crime rates are decreasing, based off reports. Y’know the guy who used to change your diapers is a merchant now?”

Byleth blinks. “He is?”

“Yeah, sells jewelry. And the lady who tried to teach you how to shoot a bow is courting Manuela now.”

Byleth’s eyebrows rise of their own accord. “She is?”

Father looks amused. “They’re all going their separate ways, finding their real passions in life. I dunno, makes me feel kinda proud, in a way. Not so different from teaching a bunch of brats, really.”

“Professor?” Edelgard peers around the doorway. Her hair is tied in a side-ponytail today, and Byleth has to say he likes it much better like this—she looks more relaxed, like she doesn’t have the weight of a continent bearing down on her shoulders. “Ah, Byleth, you’re still here. Well, anyway, I finished my analysis on Ferdinand’s reports on educational rights, and Bernadetta has a suggestion about the new amendment Hubert wrote up the other day. Would a discussion later be alright with you two?”

Father nods, but Byleth shakes his head. “I didn’t follow a word you just said,” he tells her.

“Honest as always,” Edelgard sighs, but there’s an amused little smile on her lips. “Feel free to stay as long as you like, Byleth. Linhardt is napping in my office, if you need him.” Then she hurries off down the hall, heels clacking audibly.

Father gives him a look. “How are things with you anyway, kid? House alright? Fish any good?”

“House is great, fish are great,” Byleth confirms. “You know you can visit once in a while. It’s only a half-hour’s carriage ride from the monastery. Although I would recommend informing us ahead of time, just in case.”

“Just in case,” Father repeats, gaze taking on a hint of suspicion. “Just what would you two be doing that you need prior notice of a visit from your old man, huh?”

Byleth had sort of been thinking about how embarrassing it would be if Father walked in on them playing cards, but now that he thinks about it, he supposes it might be slightly worse if Father walked in on Linhardt trying some new experiment that involved Byleth pressed up against the kitchen counter with only an apron on. “Oh, you know,” Byleth meekly says. “Er… well, ahem, I do need to get going. I have very important… business. In the. Library.”

He dashes off before Father can wring a real answer out of him.

The Imperial Palace is ridiculously (and, in Byleth’s humble opinion, unnecessarily) huge, but some helpful soldiers point the way to the library, which is _necessarily_ huge. He’s not sure if it’s because it reminds him of the library in the monastery, when times were simpler and it hadn’t been burnt to a crisp yet, but something about it makes him relax no matter what. The shelves are tall enough to graze the ceiling, and they seem to just go on and on until the very end of the room. Byleth thinks he could get lost in here if he really wanted to.

It’s just his luck that the instant he pushes the double doors open, he’s faced with Edelgard and Lysithea standing mere inches from one another, their heads tilted just slightly to the side in clear preparation.

Byleth blinks. Edelgard yelps. Lysithea screams and nearly fires a spell towards him before reining the miasma back.

“Oh, it’s you,” Lysithea says, like she hadn’t been _this_ close to dissolving his eyeballs. “Could you _knock_ next time?”

“This is a library,” Byleth points out, just like how Caspar and Ashe had been in a kitchen. If he’s not careful, walking in on people about to engage in certain activities is going to become a habit of his, and that is the absolute last thing he wants to make a habit of. “Should I… leave?”

“No! No, no,” Edelgard says, despite her looking at anything but Byleth. “You’re right, this is a library! A library is… free for public use. Please, go ahead and… and… do whatever you… do in here.”

“I read,” Byleth informs her.

Edelgard looks like she now wants to grab a book and throw it in his face. “I _know_ that! Ugh. Well, um, Lysithea, I’ll just… be off now. You take care of Byleth if he needs anything.” She brushes past Byleth when she leaves, her cheeks matching the color of her dress.

Lysithea gives Byleth a dirty look. “Thanks for nothing.”

“You’re welcome.” Byleth opens up his (Linhardt’s, really) rucksack and fishes out the half-dozen books he’d borrowed during their last visit. “Here you go. Two weeks, as promised.”

Looking slightly mollified, Lysithea steps forward but doesn’t take the books in hand—she flicks her wrist, and a purple aura surrounds the volumes instead as they drift off to their respective positions in the shelves. “At least your concept of time is still intact. So, will it be the same today? Wander around in here until your husband comes by to fetch you? Your roles have switched since our academy days, if I remember you two correctly.”

Byleth smiles. He doesn’t think he’ll ever grow tired of hearing Linhardt be referred to as his _husband._ “He made me promise to find some books for him too, so it works out.”

He doesn’t know how much time he spends in the library, wandering from aisle to aisle and bookshelf to bookshelf, running his fingers across the cracked and weathered spines and picking out books with interesting titles or covers. Byleth pulls out volumes on Crest analysis and research, a cookbook or three, and several editions on Fódlan history. There’s something about reading the past that makes Byleth forget about everything else until Linhardt is calling his name by the library doorway, and Byleth looks up just to see the sun setting outside the long windows.

“Coming,” Byleth calls back. He gathers the books up in a stack in his arms for Lysithea to check over and note down, but as he waits for her to finish everything, something else sitting atop a desk catches his eye.

Yet another old book, the corners of its cover peeling with age, rests atop a few documents. It’s evidently being used as a paperweight, but what’s more interesting are the familiar symbols imprinted in the center; beneath them are the words, _Deciphering the Ancients._

“This one too, please,” Byleth says, placing the book in Lysithea’s hands. She sighs and scrawls it down on her notepad.

Linhardt furrows his brow. “I understand your concern, but why ask _us?_ ”

Manuela folds her arms across her chest. “Now, just because I’m not your teacher anymore doesn’t mean you get to talk to me that way, Hevring. Who taught you all you know about faith magic?”

“Myself.”

Manuela pointedly looks away from Linhardt to glare at Byleth instead, who wishes they wouldn’t drag him into this. “Anyway, I’m not forcing either of you to go for it. It’s just an offer. I know you’ve been rewarded for your efforts in the war, but that money won’t last forever, and you two are going to need a living sooner or later, mm? Think it over and send me an owl once you’ve decided.”

Byleth watches the carriage she climbs into trudge on into the distance before turning to face Linhardt. “Absolutely not,” Byleth says, before Linhardt can even open his mouth. “If one of us has to do it, it should be you.”

“I am _not_ teaching a bunch of children,” Linhardt snootily responds.

Apparently, one of the teachers in the Officers Academy has just retired, and the sparse faculty hasn’t found anyone suitable enough to hire in time for the new school year to start. For some reason—probably that their cottage is within walking distance from the town in Garreg Mach—Manuela had informed Byleth and Linhardt about this, as if expecting either of them to be decent teachers.

Byleth sighs. “But she’s right,” he says. “We can’t really live off the war money forever. I was thinking of just selling fish at the market, but… I like our fish.”

“Of course you do.”

“So, um. Well, if you think about it, the monastery isn’t that far away. You wouldn’t even have to pay for the carriage ride there if you wake up early every morning.”

“In that sentence alone,” Linhardt says, “you implied that I would be walking _and_ waking up early. Every morning. Do you hear yourself right now?”

In a last ditch effort, Byleth shyly adds, “Professor Hevring has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Coming from you, very much so,” Linhardt casually responds, and Byleth has to pretend he doesn’t feel himself blush to the roots of his hair, “but coming from a load of children who can’t string coherent sentences together? No, thank you. I’d rather sell the fish. Anyway, _Professor Eisner,_ what’s stopping _you_ from taking up her offer?”

Byleth shrugs. “I… don’t like talking.”

Linhardt stares at him. “I never knew you could lie so well. Where was all that skill when you were trying to convince me of prophetic dreams?”

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you? But, well, um. It’s just.” Byleth shrugs again. He’s found that shrugging is best when he doesn’t know what else to say. “I just don’t like it. Talking. Especially in front of so many people. But you, um… well, Manuela mentioned the retired teacher was supposed to be teaching faith magic, didn’t she? So… that sounds like more your field of expertise than mine.”

There’s a pause, where Byleth hopes Linhardt is at least considering it, before Linhardt just shakes his head. “This can wait until tomorrow,” he decides. “What say we sleep on it first? Or, actually, I’d like to hear you call me _Professor_ a little more. Do you mind?”

Byleth tries and fails to will the blush from his cheeks. “That… no, I don’t.”

Whether through Byleth’s expert persuasive methods or through an impulsive decision on Linhardt’s part, he sends an owl to Manuela the next morning and gets one back within the hour listing down all the lessons he has to cover in the first three months. “Well, this is terrible already,” Linhardt grumbles, eyes still half-lidded with sleep as Byleth reads the letter with him over his shoulder. “Heal and Nosferatu… what? Children don’t even need the latter.”

“I learned it early on,” Byleth reminds him, smiling at the memory.

Linhardt rolls his eyes. “Yes, you did. But there’s no war, and there’s no need to hurt anyone anymore. Why…”

He trails off at that, before sighing and folding the letter back up. “Whatever. Should I buy a new coat?”

They go to the market that day—Linhardt buys a new coat, and a new pair of boots, and a new set of stockings because Byleth had ripped his previous ones in his excitement that one time, and he even gets his eyes checked. After some peering and poring, the doctor leans back against his seat and asks, “Have you been reading in the dark?”

“No, of course not,” Linhardt says. “The lantern is—”

“Have you been reading at night?” the doctor politely amends. Linhardt, predictably, is silent. “Your eyesight has deteriorated quite a bit since your last check-up. At this rate… No, you _need_ glasses, else you risk your vision worsening.”

Linhardt looks affronted. “I can’t possibly _need_ them.”

“Why not?” Byleth asks—the doctor has stood up to fuss with some records on his table.

“I tried a pair on before,” Linhardt mutters. “I looked horrible.”

He ends up with a glasses prescription both Byleth and his doctor bully him into agreeing on, and Linhardt walks out of the clinic fiddling with the new accessory perched on the bridge of his nose. “What?” he huffs, when he catches Byleth staring at him from the corner of his eye. “I know, I know, it’s awful. Listen, I promise I’ll stop reading at night if you just let me throw these in the garbage—”

“It looks cute,” Byleth interrupts, “but I was just thinking that they’re definitely going to get in the way of kissing.”

He waits until the blush reaches Linhardt’s ears before he tugs the glasses off and presses their lips together, just long enough for Linhardt to tilt his head and deepen the kiss before Byleth draws back and nudges his glasses back on. “Stop reading at night _and_ wear these all the time. Or else kissing is going to be a real chore.”

“I hate you.” Linhardt tries to pull Byleth closer by his collar, but Byleth easily dislodges his grip and starts walking ahead, forcing Linhardt to quicken his pace and catch up. “Oh, come on, now _you’re_ the one being a tease? How low you’ve sunk.”

Byleth suppresses a smile—it’s not often Linhardt gets clingy, but it’s always cute when it happens. “You promise to stop reading at—”

“ _Yes,_ I promise to be intelligent,” Linhardt interjects, the most adorable pout on his lips, “so hurry up and finish what you started.”

The school year starts in just another month, and the realization that it’s been an entire year since their battle against Rhea hits Byleth when Linhardt buys a new planner before they head back home. It hardly feels like that much time has passed—has it really been a year since Byleth tore his chest open with dark magic, since he danced one last time with Sothis, since he and Linhardt proposed to each other at the mid-way point of the Goddess Tower? Some days it feels like the war never even ended.

“Byleth?” Linhardt nudges him, and Byleth blinks himself back to reality. “Do you think I should go for practicality or the aesthetic? A set of quills would make me look much smarter, but they are just so much more tiring to use than some simple pens…”

“You already look smart—”

“Do _not_ say it’s because of the glasses.”

“—because… you are,” Byleth amends at the last moment, drawing a small laugh from Linhardt. “I say go for the pens. I need them too.”

“I was asking for _myself,_ ” Linhardt huffs, but he gets the pens anyway.

Despite his earlier reluctance, Linhardt seems to be taking to the job with unexpected gusto—when they get back home, he settles atop their bed, surrounds himself with their old textbooks on magic that Byleth had been too sentimental to throw out, and buries himself in scrawling down on his planner, muttering to himself all the while. He has that look of concentration on his face that tells Byleth bothering him now would be suicidal, so Byleth heads out to water the garden.

Byleth sets the watering can down beside him, staring at the saplings sprouting from the soil in front of him. The sky is clear today, and a breeze rustles the leaves of the tree behind him.

Some days it feels like the war never even ended—that it’s still going on around them, just too far away to see. Elsewhere, someone could be dying because of a bandit attack—elsewhere, a family could be starving because of nobles embezzling their money. Some days it feels like Byleth can never truly escape death, and some days he catches Linhardt staring down at his hands, as if seeing blood splattered across the pale skin. Just the knowledge that the Creator Sword is still sitting in the dusty storage room in their home is enough reminder of the lives he’s taken.

Byleth stands up and heads back inside, washes his hands in the sink, and curls up next to Linhardt on a relatively-empty space on their bed. “Linny.”

“I wish you’d stop calling me that,” Linhardt says, but he sounds just as fond as the last time he’d said the exact same words.

Byleth shifts around so he can lay his head atop Linhardt’s shoulder. There are what _look_ like lesson plans scribbled in the planner balanced atop Linhardt’s knee, but Byleth can never be too sure when it comes to that penmanship of his. “I’m tired.”

Linhardt cranes his neck and presses a kiss to Byleth’s forehead, reaching behind him to card his fingers through long blue hair and undoing the half-ponytail Linhardt had fixed it up in this morning. “Then rest.”

Byleth wriggles. “Kiss me goodnight.”

“ _Goodnight?_ You’re going to have to wake up in an hour to make dinner.”

“Kiss me goodnight, _please?_ ”

Linhardt sighs, but cups his chin and pulls Byleth in for a grudging goodnight kiss that Byleth can’t help but smile into. Linhardt tastes of the sweet potatoes they’d eaten together at the market, and there’s a hint of citrus from the tea they’d had this morning. When they separate, Linhardt sighs and asks, “Satisfied yet?”

“Linhardt.” Byleth swipes at a dot of ink on the tip of Linhardt’s nose. “Do you want to plant Angelica herbs in the garden?”

“Go to sleep,” Linhardt orders, already turning back to his planner, but there’s a small upwards quirk to his lips that Byleth can’t help but kiss, quick and chaste, before he makes himself comfortable by Linhardt’s side.

Byleth wakes up approximately six hours later in the middle of the night, Linhardt sprawled atop him and drooling on his arm, books and papers scattered across the sheets. He considers getting up and making something to eat, even if it’s too late for dinner and too early for breakfast, but decides to just tuck Linhardt under the blankets instead.

Some days it feels like the war never ended, or that they’re but a hair’s breadth away from running headlong into another one. Byleth stares down at Linhardt’s palm, the criss-crossing scars illuminated by the moonlight, and feels heat building behind his eyes.

Linhardt shifts, blinking blearily up at him. “Byleth?” he mumbles. “Why are you up?”

“You didn’t wake me.”

“What?”

“For dinner.”

Linhardt groans and wraps himself up in the blanket. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Lin?”

“ _What?_ ”

Byleth crawls under the blankets beside Linhardt and kisses the engagement ring resting against his sternum. Linhardt blinks again, looking pleasantly surprised, as Byleth shifts to press his ear against Linhardt’s chest. The steady _th-thump_ of his heartbeat doesn’t change, doesn’t stop, but the thought that it _might,_ one day, makes Byleth grip onto the sheets hard enough that the fabric nearly tears. “My heart. I love you.”

Linhardt sighs softly, breath ruffling the top of Byleth’s head as he rests his chin atop his hair. “I love you too,” he says. “Sleep, Byleth. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Byleth knows that, he does. But he holds on tight anyway, because they won’t be young and twenty-something forever, and Byleth doesn’t want to wait for another war to come around before he holds Linhardt close like this.

Caspar does not like fish.

This seems like quite a small detail to remember from their academy days, but Caspar had hated fish so terribly and vocally that it was difficult to forget, even after all these years. Dorothea and Petra had tried handing him all sorts of fish dishes, because surely one man could not hold that much hate for an entire species, but none of them had ever been to Caspar’s liking. The rejected dishes would end up in either Byleth or Linhardt’s stomach, though, so it always worked out in the end.

Byleth had never figured that would be cause for concern until this very moment, standing in the kitchenette, staring blankly at the stove and trying to think of a single meal he can make right now that does not involve fish.

“You know you can ask for help, right?” Ashe says, leaning against the wall and looking amused. He’s grown his hair out a little so that it reaches just above his shoulders, and it isn’t as carefully combed back as before either—if anything, it resembles his messier hair during their younger years.

Byleth frowns. “That’s not very good etiquette.”

“Oh, come on. I haven’t cooked in a decent kitchen in ages. You’ll be doing me a favor, really.” Ashe washes his hands in the sink like a man on a mission, and grins excitably when Byleth relents and steps away from the stove.

It’s been a little under a year since Caspar and Ashe started on their travels around Fódlan (or, more concisely, since they eloped), but they really haven’t changed much, although Caspar apparently now has extensive knowledge on how campfires work and Ashe has gotten good enough at embroidery that he can do it while walking or atop a horse. They’d sent an owl that they would be visiting, but Byleth had completely forgotten about it until the last minute, when it was too late to make a run for the town market for non-fish ingredients.

Despite the scarcity of pretty much anything in the house, Ashe can still make a mean feast, and by the time Caspar has returned from picking Linhardt up from Garreg Mach, there’s only one fish dish among three other different ones. “Thanks for the meal!” Caspar cheers. “I’ve missed real Ashe food! The stuff they serve at inns can’t compare.”

“Real Ashe food,” Linhardt repeats to himself, poking at the slice of beast meat teppanyaki he had managed to get before Caspar shoved the rest onto his plate. “I admit, Byleth’s cooking does leave much to be desired. The whole house stinks of fish, doesn’t it?”

Ashe shifts uncomfortably in his seat like he wants to tell the truth but is too polite to do so. Caspar, bless him, has no such qualms. “Yup.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Byleth protests.

“You only say that because you spend all your time either in here or fishing,” Linhardt says, “so you never smell anything different.”

Byleth has to grudgingly admit he has a point. “So, um. You two said you were stopping by for something important, right? What was it?”

“Right!” Caspar swallows his food before speaking, which is such an improvement from five years ago that Byleth stares in disbelief for a few seconds. “You know Meatloaf? Well, he went and got himself loaded down with kittens. It was hard enough with Burrito—”

“The wife,” Ashe helpfully supplies.

“—but we can probably only keep one of the little guys if we wanna, y’know, not die on the road.” Caspar shoots Ashe a pout at this, as if this were Ashe’s terrible idea and Caspar is only going along with it because he’s already lost the past five arguments. “So we’ve been giving ‘em away to friends and stuff!”

Linhardt gives him a tired look. “You made it sound much more important in the letter.”

“It _is_ important,” Ashe argues. “We can’t just up and abandon the kittens in the wild, can’t we? And shelters never take good care of the animals in them. And who doesn’t like free cats?”

“Me.”

“You like cats,” Byleth says, confused.

Linhardt scowls and kicks his ankle under the table. With how cramped they are, it’s a miracle he doesn’t accidentally hit Caspar or Ashe instead. “I _prefer_ them over dogs, there’s a difference. And anyway, you’re the one staying at home all the time—why are you actively taking on responsibility? I shudder at the very thought.”

“And yet you’re the one with the day job,” Byleth muses.

Ashe perks up. “That’s right! You’re a teacher at the academy, huh, Linhardt? Do the students really call you Professor Hevring?”

“They do! I heard ‘em!” Caspar shouts, raising his spoon in the air like an axe. “I showed up at the gates to surprise him and stuff, but he happened to walk out with, like, a bunch of kids who were all _this_ tiny.” He levels his hand at around half of Linhardt’s height, which Byleth is fairly sure is a bit of an exaggeration. “Could’ve sworn we weren’t total midgets when we were their age.”

“You’re right,” Ashe says. “You were even smaller, if I recall.”

They only have their one bed, but Byleth finds some spare mattresses and lays them out in the living room, wondering if they’d be opposed to having to cuddle for warmth considering the nights are growing colder again. He voices as such aloud to Caspar, who volunteered to help clean the dining table, and Caspar just shrugs. “We’ve done that plenty of times before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, like in caves and forests and stuff. It’s no problem, though.” Caspar grins. “I’ve been saving up in secret. Just a little bit more and I’ll have enough for this nice place in Faerghus, so Ashe can visit his family whenever he likes.”

Byleth pauses in the middle of washing dishes. “That’s… sweet.” They’d paid off the loan for this house through the money Edelgard had given them, and belatedly he remembers that Caspar and Ashe had donated their compensation for their war efforts to the poor, marginalized communities scattered throughout Fódlan. “Sometimes I feel a little guilty,” Byleth murmurs, “that I just spend all day in the house while Linhardt works.”

Caspar hums. “I’ll be honest, I never thought Lin would willingly work. If he really didn’t like the job, though, he wouldn’t have taken it, and I saw him earlier. He looked like he was doing okay.” He moves from the dining table to clap Byleth on the back of his shoulder, and Byleth nearly stumbles head-first into the sink. When had Caspar gotten this strong? “Thanks, by the way,” Caspar adds, sounding almost bashful. “For making him happy.”

“I…” Byleth stares down at the stack of plates in the sink. _Happy._ If he’d been asked to describe how he felt for the past year, he’s not sure if that’s the word he would have used, but only because it’s been so long since he had felt genuinely _happy_ that the very feeling is foreign now.

His hand drifts up to touch his chest, where the scar from Athame is. He hadn’t been happy as a mercenary (but then he hadn’t been anything at all, really), he hadn’t been happy as a student, and he certainly hadn’t been happy when the war broke out and there was death and destruction around every corner.

But Byleth is here now, in a cottage by the riverside—Byleth is here now, with Linhardt who pretends to hate goodnight kisses but always pouts and waits for one when Byleth ‘forgets’—with Linhardt who gets absorbed in his lesson plans and sometimes does nothing but work for hours on end until Byleth coaxes him out of their room with a plate of sweet buns—with Linhardt who always threatens to snap his eyeglasses in two because of how much they get in the way of just about everything. With Linhardt. With Linhardt.

“Yeah,” Byleth says, after a long while. “Happy.”

They bid goodbye to Caspar, Ashe, and their little cat family in the morning, and say hello to a new member of their own afterwards. The kitten is still small enough to fit in Byleth’s cupped palms, and he can’t remember the last time he’s ever been so enamored with something that isn’t Linhardt or fishing. “Burrito is a Riegan Tabby, if I remember correctly,” Linhardt says. “A shame. They should have bred Meatloaf with a nice cat from Hevring.”

Byleth hands the mixed-breed kitten over to Linhardt, who looks like he’s physically restraining himself from looking excited. “You’re actually really happy about this, aren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Linhardt cheerfully says, lifting the cat up to eye level. It mewls and paws at his nose. “What should we name her? Should we stick to Caspar and Ashe’s absolutely terrible naming scheme, or should we think of one ourselves?”

“You keep saying _we,_ but I already know you have something in mind.” Byleth stands up, plants a kiss on Linhardt’s forehead before he’s officially replaced by the cat, and heads to the kitchen. “Breakfast?”

“Dinner.”

Byleth stops halfway. “Have you looked out the window recently?” he carefully asks.

“No, you fool, I meant we should name her Dinner.” Linhardt sets the cat on his lap, and he looks positively gleeful when she bats at his arms. “It’s a nice name, don’t you think? ‘Dinner, come have dinner.’ What do you think? No, I know you love it.”

Shocked speechless at how horrendous the name is, Byleth can only nod.

“It’s settled, then,” Linhardt announces, to no one in particular. “I will make Dinner a queen.”

Of what, exactly, he doesn’t elaborate on. Byleth decides he’s better off not knowing.

Garreg Mach Monastery is almost exactly as Byleth remembers it. Aside from some architectural changes, nothing else seems to have been touched, as if the place had been left alone by the passage of time. If he closes his eyes, it might almost feel like being a student again, sitting under his tree with Linhardt and sharing tea.

But he sighs and keeps his eyes open. There’s hardly any point in revisiting the past, especially now when the present is as good as it can get.

Byleth wanders through the monastery aimlessly for a while, taking note of what few differences he finds—the library, most notably, has been restored to its former glory, more or less. He spends a good deal of time sorting through the books while the newly-hired head librarian jabbers on about how construction work had started in earnest once the war ended. “But it must have been expensive,” Byleth says. “Did Her Majesty fund the construction?”

“Partially,” the librarian tells him. “She was willing to cover all costs for it, but an anonymous donor suddenly cleared over half the gold, saying he was a former employee here or some such. It’s all very hush-hush, which makes one wonder if it might have been on the wrong side of legal.”

 _A former employee…_ Byleth thumbs through a book on the saints, stopping on a page with the heading _Saint Cichol_ printed at the top. “No,” he says, to the librarian’s confusion. “I think this anonymous donor was just shy.”

He finds Linhardt in the Black Eagles classroom, as he’d predicted—Byleth stops just outside the room first, listening in on the lecture that seems to be about the Recover spell. “It’s not so different from the Heal spell, really,” Linhardt is saying, and the scratch of chalk on board makes Byleth wonder if he’s even taking the effort to write something for the class. “See page 139 of your books. It most often happens unbidden or without prior practice, as it follows the same movements and motions as a Heal spell and consequently can be cast even without the caster’s knowledge…”

“Professor Hevring?” someone pipes up, and Byleth doesn’t bother suppressing a smile. “Can you do a Recover spell right now?”

“You are welcome to go out and injure yourself for me. That’s a no,” Linhardt adds, when the scraping of chair legs against the floor is audible even from outside. “Sit down and use your brain, I know it’s in there somewhere.”

“Professor Hevring, can I go to the toilet?”

A sigh. “Make it quick. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Byleth doesn’t move fast enough, and the student steps out of the room before he can hide himself behind a nearby pillar. Caspar was right—either this year’s students are very young, or something happened to make these children grow up absolutely tiny. “Who are you?” the student asks, eyes narrowing in clear suspicion.

“Ah, uh.” Byleth tries to tuck the Creator Sword out of sight, which is hard when it’s dangling off his belt. “I’m—”

“Professor Hevring!” the student cries, hands cupped around their mouth despite the classroom being right there. “There’s someone weird out here! Should I use that Wind spell you taught us?”

Linhardt blinks, peering around the doorway, then coughs out a laugh. “By all means, use him as your training dummy.”

“Linhardt!” Byleth yelps, just before stepping to the side to avoid the sudden promised Wind spell from the student’s palms. Instead of blades of wind, though, it’s a perfectly normal gust of air, exactly as it’s written down in reason magic textbooks—Byleth wonders why he had expected the spell to come out corrupted at all. “Stop, stop! I’m a friend of your professor.”

“Professor Hevring says I can use you as my training dummy,” the student dutifully repeats. Byleth has a feeling he knows who this kid’s favorite teacher is.

Linhardt chooses that moment to step outside the classroom, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Run along to the toilet now,” he sighs, idly shooing the student away. “I’ll bring Byleth back for a training session if you so wish.”

“I do so wish!” The student’s eyes sparkle in clear admiration. “Thanks, Professor Hevring! Bye, Professor Hevring!”

“Why does he use your name like punctuation?” Byleth wonders aloud as the student rushes off to the direction of the restrooms. “It’s making me a little worried. Do I have competition now?”

Linhardt rolls his eyes. “What are you doing here? And why bring the sword with you, for goodness’ sake? You really are asking to be labeled as ‘someone weird,’ you know.”

Byleth smiles and holds up the wrapped lunchbox. “You forgot your lunch this morning. A bit unlike you, don’t you think? Did you want me to visit you in class today?”

“Why on earth would I do that to myself?” Linhardt returns, but he takes the lunchbox anyway, looking amused. “I have one more class after this, and then I can head home—Wednesdays are usually fairly empty for me, and I don’t have any seminars scheduled. Do you mind waiting a little? Or you can head inside and be their training dummy.” He jerks a thumb to point behind him, where around two dozen or so students are all clearly trying to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Byleth hums. “They really like you, don’t they?”

“Are you joking?”

“I mean, I think they all wish they were me,” Byleth says, “especially if I do this.” He takes Linhardt’s hand in his, entwining their fingers, and then kisses him for all the class to see. The collective gasp in the background, along with Linhardt’s adorable little yelp, is entirely satisfying.

Linhardt runs a hand through Byleth’s hair before pulling him away, though the sensation sends shivers down Byleth’s spine. “You are going to be punished for this,” he says, cool and decisive and in complete contrast with the blush on his cheeks. “Now go putter around and wait for me after class, alright?”

Byleth grins. “Right. Okay. Will I get to enjoy my punishment?”

Linhardt shoots him a glare that makes Byleth think he’s trying to cast a Thoron spell through his eyes alone. Byleth gets the message and flees, though not before he hears the class explode into high-pitched questions behind him.

It’s been a while since Linhardt’s become Professor Hevring. Byleth’s sure he was only supposed to be a substitute while the rest of the faculty searched for someone else to take his place, preferably someone who actually wants the job, but after what had happened with Tomas and Jeritza five years back, Father demanded they do proper background checks on all applicants. Apparently, they keep finding evidence of past shady deals or strange gaps in the applicants’ history that make them too suspicious to hire. Byleth supposes it’s a step up from letting murderers be teachers, although Jeritza had just been doing his job at the time.

So Linhardt keeps teaching, as spring turns to summer turns to autumn. In a few weeks’ time, it’ll turn to winter again soon, too, and the ball will probably be upon the students as well. Manuela might even lead another obligatory dance lesson. Byleth wonders if Linhardt’s students will crowd him and ask their favorite professor for a dance, or if Linhardt will even show up to the event—he hadn’t last time, after all.

He’s brought out of his memories by the Creator Sword pulsing weakly at his side. Byleth frowns—it’s dangerous to carry a Hero’s Relic around if he doesn’t bear the appropriate Crest, but he isn’t wielding it as a weapon, and besides, he’s had plenty of practice turning into something resembling a demonic beast. He’s fairly sure he can take whatever Sothis’ body tries to throw at him by this point. Belatedly, he realizes he had passed by the gazebo that doubles as a secret entrance down to the Holy Tomb.

Had the construction work extended down underground as well? Has it been renovated or will Byleth find it the same as how he remembers it, with the ceiling caved in and the bodies of Imperial soldiers littering the ground?

At this time of the day, where most students are in classes, there’s no one around to see Byleth take the stairs down to the Holy Tomb. It’s a far longer way down than he remembers, but then again, he _had_ been spacing out when they’d gone down the first time.

When he finally reaches the underground, he’s not sure if he should be surprised or not by how it _has_ been rebuilt. Everything is the same as before the events of five years ago, and Byleth wonders if Edelgard or Seteth had deliberately asked for the construction workers to do so. The ceiling is whole, the floor clean of blood, no sign of debris anywhere… and all around him, the area glows with that blue-green light that seems to pulse in time with the Creator Sword by his side.

Byleth takes a step forward, and another, and another. But this time he’s in his own body, in full control, and he knows what he’s here for.

The throne that used to inhabit his every other thought stands before him, unbroken and untouched. In his dream, Sothis had lain upon it, in deep sleep after her efforts to mend Fódlan and the suffering her world had gone through—she had woken up for a precious few seconds just to meet her end at the hands and hunting blade of a lowly bandit named Nemesis, who scooped her heart from her ribcage and carved a sword out of her spine.

Byleth closes his eyes, breathes. When he opens them, the throne is still bare, still empty. He looks down at the Creator Sword hanging off his waist, at the pulsing red Crest Stone embedded within it, the heart he had used to pretend had been his own.

But he has his own heart now, real and beating and alive, and Sothis has been gone for over a year.

_You have always been human, Byleth. As long as you can smile, cry, love, feel… is that not human enough for you yet?_

Byleth takes the Creator Sword in hand, uncaring of how the sharper edges of the handle pierce his palm in a way it had never done before. Carefully, he places it atop the throne, the handle resting atop one of the arms while the blade is against the seat.

“Goodbye, my friend,” he breathes. “Father says hello.”

He turns around and leaves the Holy Tomb for the last time, in both reality and his dreams.

_…Hito hi mo kimi wo… wasurete omowamu._

Byleth glances up from the book when he hears the front door click open, followed by the tinkle of their wind chimes outside. “I’m home,” Linhardt calls, a yawn catching at the end of his words. “With another letter from Petra. Delivered via baby wyvern, as per usual—do you mind getting some meat for it?”

The aforementioned wyvern swoops into their bedroom not two seconds afterwards, nuzzling Byleth’s face and making typical wyvern noises. Dinner hisses and retreats to hide beneath the bed. “Hello,” Byleth greets the wyvern. Is this the same one as last time? They all sort of look the same to him. “We don’t have meat right now. Is fish good?”

“Just not the white trout, I want that for the onion gratin tonight.”

Byleth leads the overexcited wyvern to their icebox, pushing Athame off the lid, and retrieves the first non-white-trout fish he finds, which turns out to be some Caledonian Gar—the wyvern snaps it up in two bites, vicious teeth piercing the fish’s distinct hard scales with ease. Byleth supposes he should have expected that. “What did Petra say?”

“Oh, you know, this and that.” He can hear Linhardt moving around in the living room, the sounds as familiar as the motions behind them—the rustling of clothes is Linhardt shrugging off his coat, and the click of his heels being replaced by light _thumps_ signifies him taking off his boots to walk around in the mismatched socks he’d gotten mixed up this morning. “She met with Caspar and Ashe the other day, they wrote hello in the letter. She also included more updates on the working diplomatic relations with Brigid, Almyra, and Fódlan. I suppose she thinks we’re as interested in those as Edelgard and Ferdinand are.”

Byleth tucks Athame back into its leather strap. He can probably clean the blood off its blade some other time, when Linhardt isn’t making fun of him for using a dark-imbued dagger for cutting fish open. “Don’t be mean. We are.”

“ _You_ are,” Linhardt corrects. He peers in Byleth’s room to let out a long-suffering sigh at the sight of the wyvern. “You realize that devil crashed in through one of the classroom windows in the middle of my lecture and now _I’m_ being told to pay for it? It isn’t as if I _told_ the wyvern to let loose some property damage in the monastery now, did I? And if that thing even _thinks_ of eating Dinner for dinner…”

“Hmm. No can do.” Byleth nudges the icebox shut with his foot to keep the wyvern from diving back for seconds, then moves over to press a brief kiss to Linhardt’s cheek. “Welcome home, my heart,” he murmurs, several minutes late.

Linhardt just smiles. Byleth doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of the sight. “And what have you been up to? Not working as usual, I take it.”

“Just reading. Ah, and I sent our reply to Dorothea’s invitation to her opera show, it’ll be entertaining seeing her act as Edelgard.” Byleth tilts his head. “And don’t complain now. You’re the one who took up the teaching position.”

“Unwillingly.”

“Entirely willingly. You adore the students.”

“Never slander me like that again,” Linhardt says, rolling his eyes. He strides over before the wyvern can barrel towards them again, and the wyvern crashes into the wall instead with a little squeak. “Was I that small and annoying when I was their age? Certainly not.”

Byleth smiles, leaning back against the wall and helping the wyvern settle on his shoulders. “Maybe a little.” In truth, Linhardt hasn’t grown an inch since their academy days, but then again neither has Byleth. He supposes they’re both just as small and annoying as ever. “Even if you don’t like the children, though, they certainly like you.”

Linhardt flops onto their bed and blows a stray strand of hair out of his face, staring up at the ceiling. “Urgh. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why.”

“Maybe because…” Byleth crawls onto the bed and atop him, his hand reflexively moving to stroke the ring against Linhardt’s neck. “You’re just so lovable?”

“Say something that cheesy again and maybe I’ll elope with the wyvern in a fortnight.”

“That’s illegal,” Byleth admonishes. “He’s still too young.” The wyvern flies above them in circles, wings flapping noisily.

Linhardt huffs out a laugh and pulls Byleth closer, meeting his lips with his own—Byleth sighs into his mouth, their tongues languidly sliding against each other’s. “I think you should be a little more worried about the inter-species part,” Linhardt says, once they separate; his cheeks are flushed a delightful shade of red, and he flips their positions over in a surprisingly fluid motion so that he hovers above Byleth, his long green hair tickling Byleth’s cheek.

“Mm. No, I’m not worried at all.” Byleth lets out a soft sigh when Linhardt kisses him again, along his throat this time, nipping at the spot just beneath his jaw—the bruise Linhardt had left there last night had begun to fade in the afternoon, to his disappointment. Linhardt should do something about that.

A cold hand snakes up Byleth’s shirt, resting lightly against his stomach. “Because I’d never leave you, is that right?” Linhardt’s thumb digs into his hip bone, and when he speaks his breath fans warm and tempting across Byleth’s neck.

Byleth can’t hold back just the slightest of shivers, his grip on Linhardt’s wrist tightening. “L-Linhardt…”

Another kiss, but this time much closer to his sternum—this would normally be impossible with the mess called Byleth’s hair, but thankfully he’d had the foresight to tie it in a loose, low ponytail this morning. “Yes?” Linhardt murmurs. It’s not even dinnertime yet, but Byleth’s ready to forget about everything else that needs his attention and focus on Linhardt, here and now.

“I, ah—I want—”

“You know what I want?” Linhardt retracts his hand and sits up, grinning cheekily at the likely gobsmacked look on Byleth’s face. “Onion gratin soup. I’ve been thinking about it all day, it was the one thing keeping me going while I was in the middle of talking to two dozen children at the same time…”

Byleth sighs. “Why do you have to do this?”

Linhardt bends back down and presses a kiss to the crown of Byleth’s head. “Because I am hungry, and if you had the time to read all afternoon then you must have the time to make us dinner. Come on.” He slips off the bed and meanders over to Byleth’s desk, where Byleth had left his books and notes open and scattered.

Byleth follows dejectedly behind, absently wrapping his arms around Linhardt’s torso and resting his chin on his shoulder. “Did you know the Imperial library recently discovered it has books dating back to centuries ago, almost to the time of the War of Heroes?” he tells him as Linhardt picks a book up to absently flip through, minding the flower bookmark from Petra. “I went and borrowed as many as I could carry again. Edelgard doesn’t mind, but Lysithea will start hunting me down after two weeks, so I’ve been transcribing as fast as I can.”

Linhardt hums in acknowledgement, a small smile crossing his lips. Byleth wonders why. “What have you been studying, then? Just everything you find?”

“More or less. There’s an interesting document about Crests that I thought you might like, but half of it is in the ancient language, so I only understood a little…” Byleth trails off, glancing curiously up at Linhardt’s face. “Er, sorry. Did I… talk too much?”

Linhardt shakes his head. “No, no. I was listening. I understand.” Another smile, this one bigger, and he sets the book down to turn and face Byleth, pressing their lips together once more. “I care,” he murmurs. “So don’t worry about talking too much, love.”

“Oh—” Byleth can feel his cheeks heating up—he’s always unprepared for whenever Linhardt decides to drop the _L-word_ on him as an endearment, even if _he’s_ always the one calling him _Linny_ until Linhardt throws a book at him in irritation. “I, ah… o-okay.” Oh, no, is he stuttering? He is. Linhardt is going to tease him relentlessly for this.

Linhardt’s smile turns into a smug smirk. “I’ve got lesson plans to fix up,” he says, drawing away and giving Byleth some breathing space. “Tell me when dinner’s finished?”

“Right.”

When Linhardt leaves to go plant himself in their designated work room (which is really just a mini-library neither of them ever feel like cleaning up), bringing the wyvern with him, Byleth sighs and slumps back down onto his seat, staring at the opened book. Linhardt had flipped it back to the page he’d been on, which is nice of him—Byleth reaches over to absently trace the curling symbols on the pages, the characters of the ancient language.

 _Wasurete omowamu…_ The words engraved on the inside of Linhardt’s promise ring, the one Byleth had plucked off a corpse so long ago. He hasn’t though about it in years, but when he’d come across an anthology of poems written in ancient times and stumbled across a line that looked too familiar to ignore, Byleth had raced to grab his stack of notes on the old language.

 _I think of you always,_ he’d deciphered.

He reads the line over and over until they fade into background noise in his thoughts, and he stands up to head to their kitchenette, bringing the fish icebox with him. In the other room, he can hear the wyvern squeaking noisily and Linhardt telling it to hush.

As Byleth gets to work on the white trout, he wonders if tomorrow will be the same—they’ll wake up together, and Linhardt will get ready for work while Byleth fixes up breakfast, and then Byleth will spend an inordinate amount of time devouring piles upon piles of books until Linhardt comes home, probably to regale him with stories about which student sent which student to the infirmary that day. Then dinner, then sleep, then wake up…

Leonie, now a traveling mercenary, had visited them a few times and asked if it bothered Byleth, to suddenly be left with very little to do after the wars. At the time, Byleth hadn’t had an answer to her question, but now he turns the words over in his head again to mull over. _Does_ it bother him? To be faced with days upon days of rest and relaxation after years of the exact opposite?

“Byleth!” Linhardt suddenly calls, amidst the loud crow from the wyvern. “Do you have any more spare fish? Preferably one that can shut this little thing up?”

Byleth feels a smile come on, and he leaves the trout to grab the icebox and head over to their library. “Coming, Linny.”

The war had cost them both far too much to think about—some nights Byleth has to hold Linhardt in his arms until the nightmares cease, and some days Linhardt refuses to go to work so he can keep Byleth company whenever the heavy misery threatens to swallow him whole. Some nights Byleth wakes up from a hazy dream where he watches the love of his life die in his arms, and some days Linhardt can barely bring himself to teach the Wind spell to his students without seeing himself in their place, his magic weathering away a towering beast into nothing but dust.

But in the mornings, when Byleth wakes up with hair in his mouth and Linhardt by his side, snoring softly, his face buried in Byleth’s chest…

The war had cost them both far too much to think about—but Byleth thinks he wouldn’t trade it for anything, if it means waking up to the sunbeams every morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [i think of you always](https://leonarddurso.com/2014/02/14/one-last-valentine-days-post-an-old-favorite-of-mine-a-tanka-by-akahito/)  
> \- [husbands in love](https://twitter.com/drawingddoom/status/1284152094077796353?s=21) by @DrawingDDoom 💚💙  
> \- [linhardt in the DLC lingerie](https://twitter.com/noctxvs/status/1286887763619516417?s=21) by @noctxvs 😳
> 
> thank you very much for reading this far! first off, i'd like to give credit to the following resources i used as references:
> 
>   * [dining hall menu](https://samurai-gamers.com/fire-emblem-three-houses/menu-list/)
>   * [gifts guide](https://www.ign.com/wikis/fire-emblem-three-houses/Gifts_Guide_-_List_of_Gifts_and_Recipient_Guide)
>   * the [items](https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_items_in_Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses) and [weapons](https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_weapons_in_Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses) lists
>   * this absurdly comprehensive [map of fodlan](https://twitter.com/meridachii/status/1196541797390069762); i visited this enough times that this was the first result in my search bar for "M" for a while
>   * [handy guide for character dorms](https://twitter.com/hg_njm/status/1162723196027592705)
> 

> 
> next, special thanks to those who read this in the original (error-riddled) google docs!! off the top of my head i can remember maria, phae, chan, susie, and moonberry, but as long as you've read even just a few words from this fic, thank you so much ;w; it means a lot that you decided to read this self-indulgent little thing, and for that i am so, so glad!!! i hope your sundays were a little better with these chapters, especially during these difficult times!!
> 
> and lastly: if you're interested in bonus content worth another 20,000+ words, check [this tweet](https://twitter.com/featherxs/status/1274734122162782208) out for more info!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you enjoyed this, please also consider retweeting the [tweet](https://twitter.com/featherxs/status/1215243393850175488) about it to get the word out to more people! c: you can also follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/featherxs) for fic updates & bad commentary
> 
> i don't reply to comments since my replies raise the comment count and it feels like cheating, but if you do want me to respond, just mention it ❤ if you have any questions, you can also find me on my [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/featherx)!
> 
> this also has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22Fn2bG0ixnZdRLISrSGJB?si=dhay7hVbQ4iTrysuWyXIRg), including all the songs that were used in the beginning/end notes! give it a listen and validate my music taste


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